


Virtual Reality: Survivor's Path

by Voisenyer_Frost



Category: Virtual Survivors
Genre: Action, Action & Romance, Action/Adventure, F/M, Gen, Virtual Reality, game
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-03
Updated: 2020-09-13
Packaged: 2021-03-04 07:35:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 17
Words: 28,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24520063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Voisenyer_Frost/pseuds/Voisenyer_Frost
Summary: The technology has leaped to the point where people can fully dive into the virtual world. A group of friends joined altogether to enter the new game called "Survivor's Path". Their exploration begins with an announcement came to all the people who are now an experiment to show who can survive in a world of fantasy without any method to return to the real world.
Relationships: various





	1. Prologue: The Familiar Isekai Trope

The world has advanced its technology to the point where it is finally possible to achieve diving into a different world. There is a group that's currently inside a room with a long table. The number of people reached fifteen people along with five empty seats. They are in a discussion about the full dive virtual technology, except... It wasn't that serious.  
"So what you're saying... Is that we are going to try this game out after this altogether."  
A guy with white hair and cerulean eyes glowing in the dark meeting room questions the aftermath of the meeting.  
"Yep, I'm wondering why you would think of it like that, Denzel."  
A person sitting at the end of one table questioned Denzel's slackening thoughts. He has short black hair and has an appearance of a strong person no matter how you look at it.  
"Well, it kinda feels like an Isekai trope from except that we can come back anytime. It's an experience to die for." - Denzel  
"Maybe you'll just get yourself entertained by various girls and build a harem."  
A person who had red hair and evil-looking crimson eyes called Denzel our for a heavy joke aimed at him.  
"Michael?! Didn't I tell you that it's not like that?!" - Denzel  
The red haired man which Denzel referred to as Michael, laughed as he messes around with Denzel who is simply doing whatever he wants.  
"Alright, hush now you two... Seymour, what do you think of the technology?"  
A blonde guy hushed the to down who were just playing around with their flair and debates about the fantasy world. He asked the strongly built man about his opinion.  
"I'd say that we shall begin this ASAP Robin. I have prepared the room where we can immediately join that world. Don't even worry, I had the equipment sanitized just in case." - Seymour  
"I knew it. I'm no longer surprised but, can we at least have a meal before entering?" - Denzel  
"You know what? Fine." - Seymour  
Seymour rung the bell that's found inside the cabinet in the table.  
A person opened the door bringing a large pushcart with multiple served meals. Each and everyone of them enjoyed their meal with some wine or cold drinks included.  
"Now everyone, follow the procedures to make sure you are going to some other server instead." - Seymour  
Seymour, along with some of his aides assisted each member to set up the equipment so that they can all go in altogether. After taking a few minutes to check everything, he went to his secretary for some questioning.  
"Everything is set here... Are you gonna join?" - Seymour  
"No, I think I'll pass this time. I'll check everyone's status for the time being." - Secretary  
"Alright, be sure to keep everything in check." - Seymour  
Seymour entered a slot and equipped the necessary gear for preparation.  
"Alright everyone, follow after me!" - Seymour  
The attention of other people was taken by the intercom Symor installed within each room. They were somewhat claustrophobic but they didn't pay attention to that.  
"Server linking." - Seymour  
Everyone else followed after Seymour's words.  
"Survivor's Path." - Seymour  
Light starts to cover their eyes while they wait for Seymour to finish up the process.  
"Program Start!" - Seymour  
After everyone followed, light shined within the boxes and changed their location.  
They have entered Survivor's Path.  
The group was placed altogether in a single town. They noticed the NPCs and players wearing various clothing.  
"First things first..." - Seymour  
Seymour immediately opened his character profile by swiping his right hand downwards. He checked each tab and moved to the settings.  
"No logout?" - Seymour  
Seymour noticed the oddity of the situation and immediately asked Michael, Robin, and Denzel about it.  
"For real? No logout button?" - Robin  
"Crap..." - Michael  
"Oi oi... This is the exact isekai trope from that one series!" - Denzel  
The four of them immediately knew what was up, and called in the rest of the group for a meeting.  
Each one of the members were somewhat shocked and had feelings of fear but they were immediately reassured by both Robin and Denzel.  
Seymour was looking around the world and noticed a large rectangular shaped object which opened a video from the real world.  
"Greetings to all players who are now in the main server... I am here to announce my gratitude for becoming my subjects to be tested. First things first, you are currently confined in a virtual space. This is a brand new world with only this town in the central area prepared for you. You are allowed to build, explore, and enjoy this world to your heart's content. However, you have to progress into the story of a certain known game. Don't worry about death... If you die, you start over in a different server with better starting gear. I leave you a gift, to help you progress. That's all..."  
The rectangular monitor disappeared and returned the shape into a normal sky. We started hearing chatter all around which Seymour urged them to follow him to a better place.  
"Alright you guys... With this... Let's get to work now." - Seymour


	2. The Early Game Arc: First Night, First Blood

(Denzel’s POV)  
Seymour had given everyone various tasks to cope up with our current situation. I was assigned to mining underground along with a few people around me.  
“Denzel, there’s a chest here!”  
A guy shorter than me called out to investigate a hidden chest that he found.  
“Ross? Have you opened it yet?”  
I peeked out from the corner after halting for a bit. I left the pickaxe on the group as I moved towards Ross who had the face of a true gamer.  
He had hair that’s quite too long for a guy, and a face that seems to have a long history of gaming.  
“This chest, doesn’t it look familiar?” - Ross  
Ross mentioned his familiarity of the chest while I try to reach my hand out to open it. I stopped on reflex and took a second to check the large chest.  
“It’s like those golden chests from Terraria.”  
“See? I can somewhat tell that there will be great loot here.” - Ross  
Ross seems to realize the possible content this chest will contain.  
“You two, what are you doing slacking off?”  
A girl with long hair called out to me and Ross who were debating on which one of us will open the chest in front of us.  
“Ah! Oh Sharon, it’s just you... We’re pretty interested in this chest over here.”  
“Hmm, then what are you waiting for?” - Sharon  
Alright alright, I get it! I’ll open it.  
As my hand reached out to the chest, I also saw Ross’s hand reaching out.  
“Ok, let’s be real here. Who is going to open this chest?”  
Another awkward delay as me and Ross stare at each other.  
“Ah! Enough you two! I’ll open it myself!” - Sharon  
Sharon pushes both of us away and opens the chest herself.  
“Wha!?”  
“Wai!” - Ross  
While being surprised by Sharon’s sudden action, the contents of the chest were revealed immediately.  
“Alright, now take a look you two.” - Sharon  
Me and Ross moved towards the chest and noticed the familiar contents...  
“Band of Regeneration, silver bars, ropes, bombs, and potions. It really is Terraria.”  
“Don’t assume it’s just Terraria, there could be other games that will be mixed into this.” - Ross  
Right, it’s possible that there are more games infused into this game. It’s not only Terraria but some actual RPG games with magic are probably infused as well. If that’s the case though it makes some magic items in Terraria quite useless.  
While pondering about the actual gameplay in Survivor’s Path, I had noticed that there’s quite some space behind this golden chest.  
I walked behind the chest and went in deeper into the darkness while holding nothing but a torch.  
“Denz?” - Ross  
“Wait a bit over there...”  
I moved around and noticed a drop down. I tied a rope to the edge and slid down the rope.  
It’s an actual cave... Holy crap! I raised my voice a bit more to call Ross and Sharon.  
“It seems that you found more than just a golden chest Ross...”  
I tried going in deeper into the cave and noticed some footsteps that seemed to have landed gracefully.  
“You- you’d seriously enjoy risking your life to see something new huh?” - Ross  
“What do you mean? Isn’t that nothing new?”  
Having a habit of risking my own self for the others is something I do have. While thinking of that, Sharon slid down from the rope and arrived with us.  
“Should we explore? What time is it?”  
“It’s just about noon... Seymour said to be back by dusk right?” - Sharon  
Sharon seems to become intrigued with my idea to explore further.  
“The deeper we are, the stronger the monsters... So we should be careful.” - Ross  
“I know, I know...”  
Me, Ross, and Sharon went down deeper into the cave.  
We had collected various minerals, loot from golden chests and some strange underground houses. After some time exploring the underground, we had immediately resurfaced to rendezvous with the rest of the group.  
“They said to rendezvous in the peak of the mountains but... Where exactly?” - Ross  
We are currently in the mountains where we see nothing but grass. We walked around for a while and noticed a girl with short hair with purple tinges in it. That girl is one of us...  
“Ah! Chesca!” - Sharon  
Sharon immediately called out to Chesca and asked for Seymour’s whereabouts.  
"Where’s Seymour?” - Sharon  
"Ah, he's currently inside a cave setting up some things." - Chesca  
"That looks heavy, do you need help?" - Ross  
Ross and Sharon helps out Chesca carry a huge amount of building materials.  
I moved towards the cave which Chesca pointed and saw Seymour holding out a large map. There was another person with him who has brown hair and a thin body.  
"Yo?"  
"Denz? Perfect timing, summarize the plans Allen." - Seymour  
Seymour urges Allen to explain the details of the plans he had. Allen, having enough knowledge on what to do, explained the idea clearly. I moved around to look at the large map that seems to be the entirety of the world.  
"The center of this map is where we all started. We're currently a bit north to that. The plan is to make a castle here which will become our official residence." - Allen  
"So we're immediately going for the big guns huh?"  
"Yep, we're gonna have to go big with our lives here. We don't plan to just die off easily, we need to complete this game of theirs after all." - Seymour  
"Anyways, having a castle is definitely good as we have no one else that have acclaimed this location. There are a hundred thousand people wandering around just like that, but our advantage is set if we settle in the mountains." - Allen  
"I see now... So Chesca was carrying the stuff outside."  
"Yep, right now though... I only plan to make two simple rooms to allow everyone to sleep for tonight. We'll take turns on night guarding so you can rest right now." - Seymour  
"Really? I'll take on the offer then!"  
I moved towards the corner of the cave and slept for some time.  
A few hours have passed and I saw the red haired demon in front of my face.  
"Whoa! Michael! What the hell man!"  
"Dude, it's your turn for night guarding." - Michael  
Michael starts grinning as he forces me to stand up. We left the cave and I start check on the others before I saw Michael move towards the room for the guys.  
Two rooms was splendidly made with proper doors and actual lighting.  
This doesn't look like a starter house...  
While thinking that in my head, Michael's head pops out from the door.  
"Denz, since you're the last one here... You might as well wait until everybody wakes up." - Michael  
"Eh, it's fine... I have more or less slept enough."  
Michael returns in the room and sleeps with the others. When I checked in, each person has a bed which makes it look like a normal barracks.  
I sat down on a large rock in front of the stone house. I simply started the waiting game until I heard some footsteps.  
Movement...  
I hid behind the rock as I listened in to the movement.  
"What the hell? There's already a house here? Then let's just claim it to ourselves!"  
"What do we do if there are people in it?"  
"Don't worry! We'll kill them! If there are girls, we rape and oppress them!"  
Hooligans huh? Might as well kill them right here. I brandished the silver sword I made during the free time I had.  
I checked my stats and class once again before entering combat. My class name is Frigid Traveler in which I didn't particularly understand at first. That was until I noticed that I have complete ice magic and abilities that are better when in groups called: "Travel Along".  
I created a sword made of ice magic and wielded it in my off hand. It looked pretty dull and could possibly be a weak kind of sword.  
I took out grenades and rolled a few towards the approaching group. Without noticing, half of the group was blown off from the explosion and got my chance to move while they're distracted.  
I dashed towards the three distracted men and brandished both swords silently. I sliced off the neck of one person and dashed once again to attack the remaining two.  
"Wh!"  
"Tsk! Small fry sneaking around!"  
The two men brandished their swords while the other one that I sliced starts panicking.  
I tried cutting the calm person down with my ice blade. I was stopped by a golden sword while the other guy launches an attack with a black sword. Is that a different type of wood? Or is it some kind of new ore?  
"Frozen Coffin!"  
I froze the cheeky guy over and switched my aggression towards the other hooligan that's charging in.  
"Yaaa!"  
I parried the sword with the ice blade and raised it overhead. I then stabbed the silver sword through his throat.  
The guy which I sliced first finally took out a sword and tried to attack me while holding his neck.  
I dodged to the side and fully cut off his neck.  
Both enemies died at the same time and became harmless particles.  
I rolled down some more grenades towards the men that were blown away. Gotta make sure that they're dead.  
After hearing a few explosions, the rest of the enemies died off. I dispelled frozen coffin from the last guy.  
"Yo, I was actually thinking to let you off but I feel like you'd plan for revenge."  
The cheeky man disappears and painted his face with fear.  
"Please! Don't kill me! I swear it on my life! I won't plan for revenge!"  
"Sorry man, but the other server will definitely need to serve its purpose by now."  
The man kneeled to try and beg for forgiveness but I simply cut off their head without anything else to say.  
After killing them and taking all their items, I noticed the sky twitching to form a screen again.  
"First blood has been committed!"


	3. The Early Game Arc: Ten Days in with Old Acquaintances

(Denzel's POV):  
Ten days have passed since I have arrived to this world. When remembering the first night that I had killed people mercilessly, I didn't feel much regret for doing something that. I instead took the time to learn out ice magic more and try to learn the blacksmithing tech.  
I have started development on a certain weapon. I wasn't able to think about the others but when Seymour simply allowed me off after day five, I had created a pair of gauntlets.  
Right now though, I am currently enchanting it to the limits by allowing it to transform to any desired weapon.  
I had already created the all absorbing shield that will defend against powerful attacks and all forms of magic. I'm currently infusing another type of weapon I can transform it to. I opened a scroll that contains the blueprints of the gauntlet.  
My location is currently the central spawn where I'm settled down in an inn. I have some friends with me who are what I consider the closest to me.  
"Denzel, are you in here?"  
I heard the soft knocking on the door. I usually ignored any form of knocking on my door. However, the person was one such friend of mine that I let her in.  
"It's unlocked!"  
I continued to work on improvising of my weapon to make it better for me. When I heard the door open, I immediately turned to see a girl with short, blond hair and orange eyes. She has a height that's nearing mine and a slender body.  
"What did you need Bella?"  
That person was Bella, she's one of my closer friends from the past until now. It's seems she has something?  
"No, nothing... I just wanted to check on you." - Bella  
She simply moved around the room and sat down on the bed while watching me work. I attempted to transform it to the sword design that was drawn and ended up in success this time.  
Both gauntlets changed into twin swords with beautiful edges. Ooh! Finally!  
"Hmm? Is it complete?" - Bella  
She seems to have noticed? Aight, let's have her witness it.  
I held both swords and formed a ready stance.  
"Breakers!"  
The twin swords started changing up its form at a high speed and converted itself into a pair of equipped gauntlets.  
"It's a success... Phew!"  
I took off the pair of gauntlets and laid myself down flat on my bed right next to Bella. She looked at the pair of gauntlets with interest and started inquiring some questions about it.  
"This is?" - Bella  
"Probably my weapon for the rest of this experimental hell hole."  
"It can turn into a sword, and a gauntlet?" - Bella  
"It can also turn itself into a shield if I want to, though it takes both to form a single defensive shield to fully protect me."  
"What are you gonna call it?" - Bella  
A name? I wonder... I don't have a great sense of names here...  
After thinking for a while, there was only one thing I came up with.  
"Omni... Telum? Omnitelum?"  
"Hmm, what does it mean?" - Bella  
"It's the latin of 'All kinds of weapons'? Not sure..."  
"Even though it's only those three?" - Bella  
"Not really, I plan to make every kind of weapon I know infused into that."  
"I see, it sounds cool! Let's show it to the others!" - Bella  
"Huh? Wh?! Wai-!"  
Bella took both of my gauntlets and started pulling my hand. She seems determined to show it to the other girls.  
We moved to the dining hall where it's packed with various party groups.  
They immediately turned their heads toward me and Bella who are making loud steps.  
She kept pulling me towards the table at the corner where three girls are seated. One had black hair that reached her back, the other had orange hair and is looking at me. Her blue eyes connected with my gaze and cause her to turn away while blushing. The last girl had brown shoulder-length hair and has her back turned to me.  
"Guys, Denzel's here!" - Bella  
"Oh Denz! Good morning!"  
"Morning Denz!"  
"M-morning..."  
The three girls immediately greeted me and suddenly received stares of jealous from various players.  
"Morning everyone..."  
I sat beside the orange haired girl which turned her head towards me.  
"D-denz…"  
"What is it Lilith?"  
When Lilith looked at me, she seemed to have turned a bit more shy than the usual. Lilith is one of my childhood friends that have a bit of a mental issue. Her personality switches at random or situational times, causing her to have a variety of personas that seem like she's colorful.  
"H-help me level up later..." - Lilith  
Oh, she wants to catch up huh...  
"Alright, where do you wanna go later?"  
"The north... Within the snowy areas..." - Lilith  
And that's settled!  
"Let's pass by the mountains first... You still have your all-purpose crystal right?"  
She took out a black crystal that has its function to cure all effects, heal, and teleport players within the map. It was an all purpose object that will allow us to get used to this game for the first fifteen days.  
Beyond that, the crystal will disappear from the inventory and will mark the beginning of various early game events in this game to stir things up.  
We had breakfast together as Bella sat beside the two girls.  
"May, Denzel seems to have upgraded his weapon." - Bella  
"Again?! When did that happen?" - May  
The black haired girl, which was May. Became surprised to the sudden improvement of my equipment.  
"It only happened earlier... I can show it to both of you later."  
"Really? What did you name this weapon?"  
The brown haired girl stood and bent herself forward to probe in further.  
"Bella didn't tell you? It's Omnitelum."  
"That's a good name... How many upgrades do you plan on adding?" - Lilith  
"Honestly, I don't know..."  
"There he goes again Ashley, he's going all out in his life." - May  
"Although it's pretty exhausting that he always has something new up his sleeve... It's still pretty surprising nonetheless..." - Ashley  
Ashley returned to a sitting position and continued eating her breakfast. Everyone's going at a slow pace huh...  
I took out the wine bottle I bought some time ago and poured half of my drinking cup with it. The others seemed to be drinking juice or just water to alleviate their thirst.  
"Tenth day guys... Though I think it's gonna be a long life trying to complete this game... I sure hope we do!"  
We raised our cups together and drank our beverages. I seemed to have lightened up with the taste and am now ready for some early hunting. We finished up our breakfast and started preparing for our things to do for the day.  
"Alright, stay safe everyone! We'll go ahead!"  
"Stay safe!" - May  
"Bye bye!" - Lilith  
Everyone else have gone on shopping around already and is seemingly preparing for something.  
"Lilith, let's head to the mountains..."  
Both of us took out the black crystals.  
"Teleport! Northern Range!"  
The two of us were enveloped in a black sphere and disappeared. The moment we opened our eyes, a large keep was already in front of us.  
"Holy crap that's fast!"  
"I know that they're pretty great with handling things but... As expected this is a little too fast..." - Lilith  
"Oh! It's you Denz, along with a harem member."  
Michael notices me immediately after exiting a room near the entrance. Lilith seemed to blush a bit when she heard Michael's statement.  
"Leave that be, we're currently here for a short visit after not showing myself for a few days. Where's Seymour?"  
"He's currently in the map room. It's on the hallway here so just look left." - Michael  
I thanked Michael as I started pulling Lilith a bit for her to enter the keep.  
"This is grand..." - Lilith  
"Well, he does plan for a castle so it's kinda expected to make it look as grand as possible."  
From what I know the interior design was up to Robin and Allen.  
"There's Seymour. Yo!"  
"Oh, Denzel's back! How was your time?" - Seymour  
I started to feel like a detached force from Seymour's group the moment he said something like that. I tried lying to myself but I had thought that I see some people quite a bit too important for me.  
"It was kinda horrible, but it was fine nonetheless. How about you guys here?"  
"We're already complete with the keep, and we're starting the walls by tomorrow. The perimeter is huge so this one will definitely take a while." - Seymour  
When I looked at the map, I noticed that it contained the details of the inside of the keep. When I looked a bit downwards, I saw a black haired guy that has a bit of a tanned skin.  
"What's Julius doing here asleep?"  
"He's been up all-night helping me with the layout of the keep. He made the maps to highlight all the rooms within this structure. Besides, he's one of our powerful pieces." - Seymour  
Damn Julius... I swear he might end up undertaking reconnaissance missions soon enough.  
"What about the others?"  
"They were currently mining around. Speaking of which, Michael found two weird things. No, three actually..." - Seymour  
"Interesting..."  
I received a large plastic bottle from Symor who seems to be grinning a bit.  
"Denz, what is that?" - Lilith  
As Lilith became curious, I start checking on whatever the hell this object is. After the scan, I opened a panel that contained the explanation.  
"Rushdown pills... These pills will boost a players stats by two for five whole minutes. After that effect, there will be a powerful debuff that will enfeeble the player's stats by half for another five minutes. Oi, you serious about giving this to someone like me?"  
"Yep, you're an essential member of the team after all." - Seymour  
He got me... I never anticipated that he'd drop me the risky choice of going all out for five minutes while being fucked over after that.  
"You know what? Thanks... I might be able to actually use this..."  
"Let's see about that soon. Show yourself to the others before going." - Seymour  
"Got ya~"


	4. The Early Game Arc: Hero's Exploration in the Skies

(Robin's POV):  
Fifteen days had passed through since we got initially stuck in Survivor's Path. We initially push forth our progress with creating a castle keep. After the completion, we immediately went to progress on creating the castle walls. Seymour and Allen had prepared a large perimeter around the mountain range. Even with the layout placed on, there is still a large room to go for an invasion.  
When Seymour tasked me to mine on a different area for the first day, I had collected some interesting potions that could signify something. Right now, since we have created a major progress in getting stronger while building the castle wall.  
I went outside as the day just started, I immediately saw Seymour training alone with some abilities at hand.  
"Training early?"  
"Oh Robin! You also training early?" - Seymour  
"Nah, I actually want to take the day off today."  
"Go ahead, if you ended up recruiting a few friends then we have the inn prepared for that." - Seymour  
Five days ago, Denzel brought some of his friends with him which are all female. Is he planning to make some harem?   
Denzel always shows his kindness to various people. However, he somewhat takes it too far for many cases.  
"About that, I want to explore more in this world. Just that I'm going alone."  
"Where do you plan on going though?" - Seymour  
"Upwards..."  
Seymour narrowed his eyes out of suspicion and looked at me somewhat weirdly. The pressure disappeared pretty quickly though.  
"Right, this game is basically a mishmash of various games in a virtual world. You might be able to collect wonderful loot somewhere." - Seymour  
"Alright, let me prepa-"  
"But!" - Seymour  
Seymour interrupted me from talking which seems to me that he has some warning.  
"There are activities that might as well be harmful. Exploring the skies should be somewhere within the early game. But going up there might be very dangerous. Proceed with extreme caution, you might be swarmed by flying enemies easily." - Seymour  
I smiled to Seymour's warning and took out a purple potion.  
"That seems to be a potion that allows you to traverse to the skies?" - Seymour  
"Yep, it was called a gravitation potion. The item description says that it will allow me to freely control my gravity mid-air."  
"Hmm, alright... Good luck." - Seymour  
"Right, I'll be right back!"  
I drank the purple potion that tasted like grapes and started to feel lighter. I started visualizing about reversing my gravity and it launched me to the sky. Fast! I need to stabilize it so I can hover!   
After finally stabilizing somewhere in the sky, I started moving around the sky freely. I traversed through the skies and had noticed what Seymour was warning me about.  
"Harpies?"  
A flock of harpies was flying in towards my position mercilessly. I channeled a heavy amount of mana towards the harpies and fired a powerful light magic attack.  
"Searing Light!"  
A bright white light shined through in one direction and annihilated all but two harpies. That's tragic, but gotta learn aerial combat then.   
I took out a runic sword forged manually by Denzel using gold and diamond. These weapons are pretty damn neat from Denzel's creativity... Though it is as powerful right now, the enchantment on it was just the cherry on top...   
The rune effect wasn't really necessary against monsters so I didn't bother activating the sword. I flew towards one harpy and sliced off its wings, causing it to free fall for a few seconds before disappearing into a bunch of particles.  
The last harpy tried to strike me with its claws while spreading its wings to display dominance.  
"My bad but..."  
I raised my altitude and grabbed the harpy by the neck. The harpy closed up its wings while trying to shake itself off. After stopping, I raised the harpy up and freed its neck. While letting go, I twisted my body around to launch a reverse slash which connected. The harpy was sliced into two parts and blew up into particles. I saw the drops in which I caught in my left hand.  
The dropped items automatically go towards your hand and considers itself as a collected item. If you hold the item then it will show the actual size. I opened my inventory by swiping thin air on my top left to the right.  
"Four harpy feathers, and silver coins huh... I guess they might be real big guns for the early game. We're probably and exception though..."  
I continued to fly in one direction. After encountering a few harpies here and there I had bumped and got stuck on clouds.  
"What the crap..."  
I raised my altitude and noticed ground blocks on top of the cloud. I landed on the ground and noticed a single house that is made of blue and yellow bricks. When I started walking towards it, I started to hear a bunch of voices.  
Forerunners? My bad but this is my loot.  
I went around the house silently and checked where the door was. After finding the entrance, I stood by the door and channeled up some mana.  
"I detect mana!"  
The voices from inside the house started making a commotion which left me with no choice.  
I kicked the door open and activated a useful ability.  
"Solare!"  
"My eyes!"  
"I can't see!"  
I blinded the two enemies in front of the entrance. I then readied my sword while closing in the position to kill one player. I swung it in an upwards diagonal formation from the right and made a lethal slice on one player.  
"Ghhaa!"  
I immediately rotated and started moving to attack the enemy on the right this time. He started recovering his eyesight while swinging his sword everywhere. He erected a barrier to protect himself after hearing his ally receive damage.  
"Runic Blade activation... Magic Breaker!"  
The ability Denzel imbued in this sword was the ability to break any form of mana. I can disperse magic attacks, destroy barriers, and disable magic items from activating their effects. It's an indispensable ability to fight against any enemy with decent magic defense.  
My attack was halted by the erected barrier, it lasted for a few seconds before it melted down into and allowed me to slash through.  
"Wha?!"  
After slicing through the enemy's body, it decapitated the person into two halves making him disperse into particles.  
"That's two kills..."  
"Wh?! Who are you!?"  
A tall guy with some armor made out of lead showed up from a separate room. That guy has some armor, let's take em on...   
I immediately dashed towards the panicked man. The guy stepped back and started shouting.  
"Player attack!"  
Troublesome...  
When passing through a door, I noticed an enemy preparing magic and launched a fireball. I raised my sword to block it with the flat surface.  
I lowered the runic sword and swung it at the panicked man who formed a stance.  
"Haaa!"  
Clashing metal resonated throughout the hallway. My sword was effectively deflected and made me lower it once again. I rotated my body this time and followed up with a back hand slash...  
"Ghh!"  
"Plasma bolt!"  
A combination of thunder and ice magic gets hurled in towards me. It was merged together to form a single ball of cold thunder.  
I continued my rotation and sliced the inbound plasma ball.  
"Wha?!"  
The magician became shocked for a second which gave away a lethal opening. I closed in the position before it could end in a much worse situation.  
"Kh! Aqua cloud!"  
An opaque barrier was formed in front of me, I sliced through it and dispersed the barrier.  
"Impos- khaa!"  
"To make things easier, please die quicker..."  
The magician fell down to the floor and looked at me with disdain and despair.  
"My class may be Legendary Hero but I'm no hero."  
I stabbed the runic sword into the stomach of the stumbled magician which made him disperse into particles before becoming a confirmed kill..  
"Impossible... We couldn't... last far..."  
"Ho? You're still alive?"  
The guy with lead armor stood up while holding his missing right arm. I had cut off the lower half of his right arm which made him unable to wield his sword.  
"Are you gonna spare me?"  
"Nah, you'd be better off dead now so you can join your friends on a different server. My bad if I had to kill you now."  
"No, I thank you rather for letting me join my friends."  
The armored man spread his body around to let me officially kill him. I sliced off his head and made him disappear into particles.  
I collected the materials they had kept on themselves and noticed some pretty neat looking materials. I kept everything in the inventory and took out the materials.  
"Starfury..."  
I opened a panel which will display the properties of the weapon.  
"A weapon that will summon starts to attack the target who takes damage from this sword.  
Sweet game treat!   
I tried holding two swords at the same time. I noticed a mirror and moved towards it to see how I look.  
"I look bad with it, I should just keep it as a secondary weapon for now."  
I hid the weapon into a quick summon slot in which I can take it out anytime. It takes four spaces which makes me allow to take three more swords in.  
I started moving around the sky island and made out my maneuvers to clear up anything I probably missed.  
My gravitation potion ran out of its duration. I became stuck here in the sky without knowing how far I'll end up falling.  
I took out a small mirror from the inventory and looked at the properties.  
"I haven't even tested this out yet..."  
Magic Mirror, if I channel some mana here I will be transported back to the place where I slept...  
I channeled in some mana into the magic mirror and made my surroundings become completely bright. It was so bright that I had to cover my eyes to prevent being blinded. As the light went away, I was standing on top of my bed.  
"It's working huh?"  
There was another way to return to the castle without the magic mirror. The black crystal's effectivity probably doesn't last longer than fifteen days but it was enough to allow us to get used to this world.  
Exploration complete...


	5. The Early Game Arc: A Mission Towards the Skies

(Robin's POV)  
Two days after exploring the Skylands, the entire group has created a head of progress on completing the castle. The entire walls have been completed, and there are now various structures that can be utilized for each profession. Denzel took some time in the forge and became in charge of making weapons. Michael holed himself up in a library to learn more fire magic. He was accompanied by a few other people. Some other members took up the some training under Seymour himself and is now brought out to missions of reconnaissance.  
After his session with the other members, he noticed and called out to me for something.  
"What is it Seymour?"  
"Ah well, you see... Denzel and Michael went on a mining session together some time ago. The two of them ended up fighting against what you call beta testers." - Seymour  
"Yeah, what about it though?"  
"There was a mystery about various items which are like Zodiac signs." - Seymour  
"Wasn't that in one of the history book in this virtual world?"  
According to Seymour, there are various books that has upheld the history of this world. One of those books mentioned about the collection of the Zodiac artifact series. It was said that these artifacts can be absorbed into the body and will provide extreme power. Each Zodiac has a different effect but it can be game changing. So if Seymour is asking me to do this then...  
"You wish to collect all thirteen?"  
"Yes, if we're gonna get out of this experiment then we might as well do it the flashy way." - Seymour  
I don't have any particular distrust against Seymour hogging all the Zodiacs to himself but it will be a valuable asset to have.  
"Do you have any more gravitation potions remaining?" - Seymour  
"Are you saying that there is one in the sky?"  
"Yes, according to the books we bought some time ago. There was one that says where right above the spawn area is a sky dungeon. It is filled to the brim with monsters and is a good place to farm a huge amount of levels." - Seymour  
"That's useful, so you're saying that there is a Zodiac there right?"  
"Yep, and it's only a matter of time before people find out and start making raid parties..." - Seymour  
"You're right... I'll set off as soon as I can."  
Seymour entered the castle keep after saying his good luck towards me. I immediately moved around and brought out the remaining gravitation potions. I started running towards the spawn which is technically a long way. I ended up meeting Denzel on the way just outside the castle walls.  
"Oh Robin? Setting off towards spawn?" - Denzel  
"Yeah, it's somewhat a long way so I have to head there like immediately."  
"Aight, you should use this then." - Denzel  
Denzel took out a pair of green boots that has a pair of wings in each one.  
"By any chance these boots will let me travel quick?"  
"Yep, they're called Hermes Boots, there are variations to improve this pair of boots which are somewhat early to late game. It's a good mobility item if you're heading to spawn right now..." - Denzel  
"Thanks, I'll be sure to repay you with something."  
"If I can use it then it's great!" - Denzel  
I started running towards spawn without looking back. I had thanked and waved towards Denzel before running so I already knew that he'd wave back as I ran forward.  
At top speed, I had arrived to the spawn area within an hour only and took a break just to catch my breath.  
I sat down on a fountain at the very center of spawn where it was announced on the start of this game. The entire area is very spacious that it could fit all players that numbered up to a hundred-thousand. There are various players around the area wandering and talking around about people or forming a party.  
Looking at the situation I started to feel a little bit guilty for looking very prepared. I shrugged off my guilt and drank a gravitation potion and took off from the ground straight up to the sky.  
After raising myself about seven eight kilometers, I finally arrived to the Skyland and starts gasping for air. Breathing is hard!  
The oxygen is pretty minimized in this area which is very dangerous when you end up being asphyxiated...   
Must deal with this quick...  
I immediately went to the edge and move above the cloud. I ran out of gravity control effect and started falling down. Crap!  
I drank another gravitation potion out of rush and recovered myself by breathing in as much as I can.  
I had entered the room and finally prepared myself to fight as I stood right in front of the main entrance.  
When I opened the door, I felt a surge of air magic hitting me back to revitalize.  
So there was air? It became pretty thin again after the surge though? Maybe it'll happen again in an interval of time.  
I took out the runic sword and prepared myself to slash a bunch of hostile monsters. The monsters range from harpies up to actual hostile human npcs... They are normal people but at the height of five meters. Kinda like giants except, they have large armor and large swords that could eliminate anyone with just a single swing.  
I moved around to avoid the swords of two giants right in front of me. Their downward swings caused the ground to tremor, forcing me to latch on the walls instead of staying on the ground to slash them. Their armor are somewhat similar to barbarians which have thick plating and are somewhat hard to breach and focus due to the lack of oxygen.  
I swung my runic sword to slash off the neck of one giant. I expended a heavy amount of effort to just slash off the head of one giant. Damnit, I think it's important to have a surge of breath when launching an attack from the front...  
While contemplating on my methods of attack, one giant knelt down before exploding into particles. Multiple harpies then showed up flying downwards to strike me with their claws.  
"Damnit, Beacon!"  
I summoned a small artifact which generated a light that could deal some light burns towards anything. I'm completely unaffected but I then used the beacon to create searing light...  
I seared the other giant while I moved my sword to block the harpies. After I seared through the giant's armor, I pierced through the body using a runic blade and killed off the other giant. When I started to catch my breath, the harpies start flying in towards me once again preparing to strike.  
The beacon dispelled as if there isn't any enough mana to sustain it. I dashed to the right to dodge the three harpies while slicing one in half... Two left!  
When I formed a stance, a powerful gust of wind passed through once more and have completely recovered my vitality. Wonderful, now I can fight much better.  
The entire fight, I kept gasping for air in this asphyxiating space... When this heavy gust pass by, I had recovered my breath and allowed me to effortlessly kill the two harpies.  
When I checked my status, I had gained a large amount of experience points and have multiple stat effects.  
"Asphyxiation, and light..."  
My body feels lighter knowing that I'm around sky-high. It's technically and advantage for me whenever I feel lighter in combat... I advanced to the next room and tried for various strategies against the hostile mobs within the area.  
After a huge amount of time passed, I wasn't able to measure my length of visit. I had explored almost every room and collected various beautiful treasure within the mansion...  
I opened the door to a large room and felt a burst of wind pass through to let me breathe again. I started to feel something different within the room as it had a dark atmosphere.  
"Tall pillars, huge empty space, and no vision... Feels like a boss would pop out..."  
As I moved further into the spacious room, fires started to light up and revealed a tall and beefy enemy...  
"God of the skies... And an actual boss fight..."  
The enemy was a giant that reached ten meters tall and wielding a gigantic battle axe. I checked the health and it seems to be very durable but it already has some health shaved off for some reason...  
But such an entrance shouldn't be put to shame alright?  
I prepared my runic sword as the giant brandished its axe and swung it downwards. I dodged the attack and tried to slash at the feet. The giant was wearing gold armor that's grandly designed to look like a king or an emperor. My sword simply bounced back after striking the armor which is simply telling me that it's futile.  
Crap, must look for another way...  
I jumped up and climbed through the giant and noticed the gaps between the armor. There are gaps in the each limb and their joints. Those are pretty thick and could be difficult to break through.  
"The patterns of this giant is pretty simple... Seymour would laugh if I lose here."  
I stabbed through the knee and jumped down as I pulled out the sword. I then moved around and dodged the incoming fist and used it as footing to move towards the nape.  
I slashed through the neck which could be very fatal as I sliced through it very easily. I jumped down once again to check on the health and discontinuing the fight for a bit.  
The giant roars and seems to have become enraged.  
"Final form? Then I'll end you!"  
I charged up towards the giant and dodged its ferocious attacks by swiftly evading to the sides while redirecting the attacks using the runic sword. I climbed up after dodging the axe and stabbed through the eye of the giant. The boss roared in agony before disappearing into particles and showing an item drop and a level up.  
Mission Complete...


	6. The Early Game Arc: An Event, A tournament

(Michael’s POV):

It was nearly a month since we got stuck here... We created major progress with the castle, with the participation of all members in our team. We had completed various structures including various inns and allowed various human NPCs to reside within the castle. Denzel suggested this to make use of NPCs to make the area a little more lively. Not only that but since collecting money is easy, we don’t really have the need for those NPCs unless some visitors come in and go.

It was only dawn when I woke up in my room in the keep.

“Damn... This sight is quite addicting... I might feel even more alive here than home.”

Today marks the twenty-fifth day we got stuck in Survivor’s Path...

I started moving around the keep and bumped into various other members in the castle.

A girl with long gray hair was moving around the hallway, I called out to her since she was the first one I saw.

“Oh hey Valeria, where are the others?”  
"Huh? Oh Michael... Seymour is outside the castle right now along with Denzel and Allen. They seem to be discussing about something..." - Valeria

When I walked closer towards her, I noticed that she had to really look up just to see me face. Shorty-

It was apparent that I might bring myself to imminent death if I say that though...

After keeping down, we exchanged greetings as I thanked her for the information.

"Thanks, I'll head to them now."

I waved at her as I ran through the hallway leading to the staircase. I started wondering about what to do for the group.

In all honesty, I did want a fantasy world where we become anything we want to fight against giant monsters... It's an old fantasy but I guess it sure is thrilling fighting using our bodies...

If I have to say, my life is neither boring nor exciting. It's completely average. I excelled in science, English, decent in gaming, and had enjoying fantasies like any other person could have.

I had arrived outside of the palace and was immediately greeted by Seymour as he sees me.

"Oh hey Michael! Perfect timing! We're about to discuss the event that will happen later." - Seymour  
"Event? What do you mean?"

And here I had missed quite a lot of detail it seems...

Later on the day...

We arrived to the central spawn where a tournament is upheld. The way the tournament works is the standard elimination. The prize is a single card.

"It was told that all of it is a series of cards that will assist a person's adventure greatly throughout the game. There are twenty-one cards in total, clearly telling us that taking all of them is impossible for the moment." - Seymour  
"We can only compete on one per card too since everything goes all at once..." - Denzel  
"Then that means..."  
"Yeah, each member would go to what interests them... We can't pick the same card alright..." - Robin

Each of us went to the card selector and prepared ourselves as we discuss about our abilities. Seymour took the lead in inciting each one of them to try their best and win the card.

"Alright everyone, you shall perform your utmost best and try to defeat every single enemy you are faced. If you lost, then it's no biggie, I'll give you a consolation." - Seymour  
"We've trained ourselves in this world while building the castle, we might as well put it to test for the tournament. So perform at your prime, and use everything you learned against the enemies for future reference..."

The other members started nodding while fearlessly smiling. Denzel showed a dark smile that doesn't suit his cool ice appearance...

"Michael, Robin, Denzel." - Seymour

Seymour suddenly called out the three of us which made us look at him who showed a pressuring gaze.

"You have no right to lose." - Seymour

The three of us didn't feel terrified or nervous, we felt pretty determined that we could definitely best all enemies without much effort. We took out our weapons and raised them up.

My Reaper Blade... An average scythe that could be bought in standard weapon shops, but was upgraded by Denzel's smithy tech...

Robin's Runic Blade... An enchanted sword that has the ability to disperse any form of magic. An overpowered original weapon made by Denzel and one other member who is an esteemed Royal Sage...

Seymour's Imperium... A spear with a large blade that will suck up and void the mana of the target upon contact. It will siphon all kinds of stats and could cause status effects such as mana exhaustion, unluckiness, and even physical asphyxiation. An original done by Denzel with the assistance of our sage and Seymour himself...

And lastly, Denzel's Omnitelum… A weapon that shapeshifts into a schematic of another weapon. Denzel's perfected all-rounder weaponry.

After shouting out our disbelief, we entered our desired arenas with determination. I chose the Devil card as it will suit my class which is somehow; "Demon King"...

I kinda like my class since it's basically something I thought up came true... With the ability to generate any magic formula, I learned from our sage about different kinds of fire magic. He taught me some basics in magic and combining various elements to boost my fire to counter certain elements. With everything learned from him, I could technically win this tournament.

It's not just him who taught me that... Seymour completely improved my physical capabilities and I had found a weapon of my expertise, a scythe. I learned various techniques that I could use with a scythe to create various methods to attack an enemy.

I entered the arena where there was a huge audience around. I didn't get the chance to feel someone cheering for me as I noticed that I was teleported to a place where there are a huge amount of players in a gladiator style arena.

"Now let me expound your information regarding this tournament. At the very start of the tournament, all competitors are to fight until you are in the danger zone of your health. Combat will be enabled but your health will not drop down to zero and will stay at one. That means if your health dropped to one, you are officially out of the tournament and will be teleported out of the arena and be fully recovered like nothing happened. After that, it will continue to diminish until only two remain. They will be given some time to rest and prepare themselves to fight each other with duel health. Duel health is a safe health that will activate upon invitation of a duel. Losing all of your duel health will not result to a death but will become unconscious for a certain amount of time. The duels here will be until one person loses consciousness and has no time limit. However, you can set timers for your duels to end without passing out."

Are you ready?! Was what the announcer said after that explanation. I prepared my scythe and noticed that most players aiming for this card have something that involves fire magic at the very least. There are ones that do not have any form of fire magic but could still be dangerous since they are well equipped.

"Begin!"

"Gate of Hell!"

Without hesitating, I immediately flooded the entire arena with lava. I jumped up to avoid being drawn in by the lava and kept an eye over various enemies.

"That seems to get the attention of the spectators..."

I started to hear various cheers directed at me for launching a pinnacle-scale magic at once. I eliminated more than fifty players in one swoop before the lava disappeared completely.

I landed down gracefully and noticed various players aiming for me.

"Let's have fun... Shall we..."

I mixed in two elements and imbued fire to the scythe. The blade emits raging flames with the deep red crimson color. A mix with pure hellfire and blood.

I avoided all the attacks of various players while slicing them off with my burning scythe. The fire became strong enough to melt flesh without contact. However, I feel fine because the perfect bonus with the demon type classes is... Permanent fire resistance.

I eliminated more and more players who are targeting me and continued dodging like a dancer following the choreography of an interpretative dance. Except that, I'm killing people in range...

After some time the number of attackers lessened so I simply stayed down and conserved my energy much more by staying still. I patiently waited until some retards appear and tried to attack me. There was no one that attacked me and just simply sat down while watching the rest of the competitors duke it out. There were some people trying to attack me from time to time but it slowly whittled down to two people in a powerful clash. It was an intense fight with a person with holy fire and a person with dark fire. They exchanged various attacks and are trading their health nicely and carefully. It was the closest match but it ended with the holy fire winning against the enemy with the dark fire.

An announcement came towards the arena and teleported both me and the person with the holy fire to a separated resting zone. We're separated by a glass wall that we cannot break and just simply waited for us to become fully recovered and fully prepared.

"Guess I'll just plan out huh?"

Holy fire is dangerous for me, it's a combination of angelic elements that could pose harm to our elements. I can't confirm the class of my enemy before going all out against it. I'll focus my attacks by closing in and probably continue moving to the side and aim for the blind spots instead.

After thinking for some time, I looked towards the enemy I'm fighting. He spread out a pair of wings that look like from an actual angel in a myth. Pure white feathers and practice maneuvering.

"How the fuck am I supposed to fight that..."

The two of us were teleported again to two ends of the arena. The cheers are going loud as if to make bets on who will win. I didn't have a choice but to go all out right this moment.

"Demonic state!"


	7. The Early Game Arc: The Demon King's Awakening

(Michael's POV):

I started the fight immediately by activating a special ability and changed my form a bit. Black demon horns grew out of my red hair and I started emitting powerful hellfire.

I dashed forward quickly as the enemy released holy fire and spread it out in my direction. Pretty cheeky!

I jumped up high and prepared my scythe to strike the enemy. His wings started flapping which made him fly up in the sky.

"Impressive..."

What a guy... I dashed to the side and started avoiding his rain of holy fire. I managed to barely avoid some attacks and started reading his current state.

Soon, he'll run out of mana so that will be my chance to step forward and strike him down. The chance will occur once his face twitches a bit.

I continued dashing around as I avoid the lethal holy fire burst out towards the ground. The ground then surges upwards as if it's an erupting geyser. Dangerous! How much mana does this guy have!

I swiftly avoided a an attack that could kill me if I dealt with it clumsily. I kept track of the area of effect on where this dangerous holy fire could spread out in seconds. A single touch was enough to make me feel painful burns.

"You're pretty skilled, but you can't dodge forever."  
"You're pretty cheeky for an angelic type! I'll bring you down to the ground in a bit!"

The flying angel starts sweating and shows sharp eyes towards me and emits a heat blast within a short radius.

"Don't think of coming close to me!"  
"Little shit! You think you're the only one who can fly!?"  
"Wh?!"  
"Demon Wings!"

A pair of demonic wings erected and spread out on my back. I then flew up and prepared my scythe to slash through the angel.

"You rubbish devil!"  
"Cheeky angel!"

I made a forward slash and slashed through the angel's torso. He dashed back and minimized the damage I dealt to a small cut in his stomach.

"Khh!"  
"Dark Blast!"

I pointed my left hand towards him and spewed out dark fire, I continued to dash forward while covering his view dangerously.

I made sure to keep an eye to any ground surges and avoid surprise attacks if necessary.

I then slashed forward without knowing the distance between us and the angel. I dashed to the side to continue hiding from the dark fire and dashed towards the angel.

"Die!"  
"Kh!"

The angel suddenly covered himself with his wings, allowing me to effectively cut off his wings and make him fall down to the ground.

"Fuhaa!"

I then dashed towards the ground to where the angel landed but I was immediately struck by a surge from the ground.

"Sh-!!"

I was blown away effortlessly, I landed with my back against the wall and knelt down from pain.

"Half health in one go huh... Khh!"

When I performed a check on myself, I had lost my demon wings and started thinking of a good plan. The angel stood up and started walking towards me while showing a smug face.

"You should've saw it coming you know, but unfortunately... You didn't even think about your movements."

The angel generated a large shining halo that could probably kill me instantly.

"Did you know, the weakness of an angel is a demon, and pure human. But they're also something that angels can kill instantly. We're inside a triangle where the one who strikes first wins so..."

I imbued demon fire to my foot and prepared myself to land a few kicks as the angel raises up the halo.

"This fight.... Ends her-!!!"

I kicked the feet of the angel which lost his balance. I then followed up with a high kick straight to his face. Since the foot that kicked his face was imbued with demon fire, he started writhing in agony as he got kicked back and rolling around while covering his face.

"Yeah, it's over... For you that is!"

I imbued both my legs with demon fire and landed an axe kick towards his gut.

"Guhaa!"

He continued writhing around in excruciating burns and tried to roll off. I imbued the scythe as I collect it off the ground with frostfire and stuck it on the ground before his body moves away.

"Good day to you... I'm the Awakened Demon King..."

I stomped his face that shows extreme fear and crushed his head mercilessly.

"And there goes your chance for the tarot card..."

When I looked around, there was a huge announcement and a spotlight at the center of the arena. I didn't even bother seeing the corpse get teleported somewhere and just walked towards the center as the announcer goes on.

I then started to see the tarot card as it slowly levitates downwards from the spotlight.

Haaaah, that was flashy... But somehow, it's nice being adorned by many people for winning like this...

I held the tarot card in one of my hands and saw a picture of a demon devilishly cornering two people in between his two hands.

Huh, since everyone will be teleported outside in a minute let me be flashy then.

I was instantly healed back up to full health and completely refreshed. I once again activated demonic state and spread out my wings that have been completely enlarged. My horns started to show itself in a more intimidating manner and had somehow excite the people watching.

"Tarot Card XV! The Devil!"

My body starts emitting various colors of fire and becomes lighter by a long shot. Damn! It feels like I'm weightless! I can use all kinds of fire limitlessly and my strength...

I smashed my hand on the ground and it suddenly cracked nicely. A huge crater was made and there seems to be some shockwave included in the strike.

So basically, tarot cards are boosted...

I increased the emission of all kinds of fire and generated multiple burning tridents with various kinds of fire.

Holy, demon, dark, pure, frost, blue (arcane), black, void, mystic, light, and stardust. I emitted all those kinds of fire before being teleported back to the entrance of the arena. The loud cheers starts to dissipate as I return to where I was earlier just like nothing had happened.

A panel appeared in front of me notifying me about collecting the tarot card. When I checked my inventory, the item is already placed in the ready-hand slots.

"Wonderful... How did the others go while on their fights?"

I tried to check up on the others but I start to see some of the members of the Asylum just hanging around together in the spawn area.

"Oooh! It's Michael! How was it on your side?"

The person who called out to me was a guy who has brownish hair and a cool guy look. He's nearly as tall as me and he somewhat attracts girls but not his crush. His name is Karl, our royal magician of the group.

"Ah, it went well. I managed to win The Devil. How about you guys?"  
"Only me won... The others lost horrendously in the free-for-all and some were close on the duel fight." - Karl

I see... Well, it's not like they're weak but... There could be some powerful opponents after all, so it can't be helped.

After chatting with all the other members for a while, the next one that appeared was Seymour.

"Oooh! The leader is here! You won right?"  
"Yep, and how about you guys?" - Seymour  
"Just me and Michael..." - Karl  
"I see... Can't help it! We may need to train more or have actual experience." - Seymour

While Seymour starts thinking about what to do with training the others, Robin had finally arrived.

"Robin! Did you win?" - Karl  
"Yeah, it was a bit of a scuffle though." - Robin

The chatter within the area continues as we wait for the last person which is Denzel, to finally come around. We started comparing between Denzel, Robin, and myself.

"I'm not so sure about our rankings to our abilities but I think I can safely say that I'm the strongest between us three?"  
"Nah, we counter each other so it's basically who manages to strike first wins..." - Robin  
"So it's basically equal huh? Somehow, I don't trust the rankings."  
"Well, you're pretty flashy so it's expected for you to be seen as one of the strongest." - Robin  
"Damnit..."

Now I regret being flashy there...

After a few minutes of waiting, Denzel finally showed up.

"And there's the guy who is often late! Did you win?" - Seymour

Seymour instantly cracked a joke about Denzel's habits of being late. If I remember correctly, he was late on the meeting before we entered this world...

"Yeah, but I performed the one-health thing where I survived with only that sliver of health." - Denzel  
"Daredevil as usual... He's quite the risk-taker but he's pretty careful when against us right?" - Seymour  
"Yeah, fighting us is different than fighting a bunch of idiots." - Robin  
"Well, I think that I'm screwed the moment you guys found an opening on me..." - Denzel  
"True, but on the rankings, he's the weakest one on the four of us..."  
"Well, hiding all our powers could be a good idea but we need to make sure that we won't be targeted easily. It's enough that only three of us are known in the top ten. Robin is still not much identified but you three are equal at this point." - Seymour  
"There would be some that would target Robin on the four of us but maybe they'd target the rest first so we keep an eye on them." - Denzel  
"Which is why we're gonna be training a lot starting tomorrow." - Seymour

Denzel's ears seemed to have twitched in reaction to Seymour's proposal of training. Dude, you're no fox or wolfkin alright?

"Seymour, you see... I'd like to continue my training alone, so I can find a way to grow without assistance." - Denzel  
"I see, how about you Michael, Robin?" - Seymour

Hmm, training alone would be great. We could gather up some experience while we're training alone and level up somewhere. We gain experience points passively as time passes but it doubles the increase when in combat. As useful as it is, you can't level up in combat which is a sad predicament.

"Yeah, I'm training alone."

I'm gonna look for a better way to level up...


	8. The Early Game Arc: What Stands on Top of Everyone

(Seymour's POV):

A full month has passed since the beginning of this so-called: "Experiment". There are various occurrences that tried to help us get through the early stages of the game. We found substantial progress and advanced through the game, equipping ourselves with decent weapons and equipment. The others may have tried to find a way to continue leveling up, but that's Denzel's expertise of finding good places to scale up some experience points.  
Currently, I'm in a discussion with Allen in regards to the further plans in the castle. Creation of various structures and other extra things to worry about.  
"So basically, we need to have more structures with specific functions huh? What's the keep for then?" - Allen  
"Well, this is where we keep our main stash of crap. Aside from that, there will be structures that has the focus so we know which ones to defend."  
"Isn't it better to keep things in a single place then?" - Allen  
"Nah, it's better if we defend the bait instead."  
The planning I had in mind allows us to forcefully protect the bait and apply psychology to the enemies that doesn't have much knowledge about trickery. Because of these trickery skills I had, I manage to make Denzel turn insane in chess pretty frequently.  
"So when do you think will you start?"  
"We can start later actually, but we might have to halt before lunch." - Allen  
We started planning out on which things to do on specific times to circulate our leveling and base creation easily. We plan to create structures early in the morning until lunch. Experience points collection comes in after lunch and self training comes in around dusk. We allowed ourselves to do whatever we want during the night. At that pace, we can completely finish the castle by a third of a month.  
After dispersing, I also join the others in building the structures and keeping check on their actions to see if there are any mistakes made during the construction design. I point it out so they could fix it themselves. The one with the roughest record just has to be Denzel.  
"Denzel! You're off a block!"  
"Ah! Crap!" - Denzel  
The issue with Denzel is that his eyes are somewhat bad. So he may misread the text written in the blueprints and screw himself over.  
That isn't particularly the case when his eyes start glowing. Which he starts doing whenever he finds a mistake. Pretty sure that ability is Peaked-Out-Concentration?  
Denzel became pretty eager with his tech and continued constructing at a steadily fast pace. He finished his part early and disappeared in an instant.  
Robin and Michael are working on their parts slowly but surely, so they aren't technically getting into minor trouble with the design. Robin does misplace some objects here and there but Michael is just...  
"Michael, you know that's the wrong way to do it..."  
"Ah crap..." - Michael  
Michael tends to make major mistakes and not notice it. It's fine since his designing skills are pretty horrible at this point. He starts checking the intended design so he would get back on track.  
As I check around on the others, I found two other members that are terraforming to level the ground well. The two of them were my most recent members to the group. Both are aspiring mages but one is a little bit aiming for enjoyment.  
"Phil, how are things going on over here?"  
"Huh? Oh Seymour, it's going pretty well I could say. Me and Regina can finish this before lunch." - Phil  
Phil has a semi-tall stature, he's pretty thin but he's curious, somewhat intelligent and a thrill seeker. He likes to learn lots of things and now that he's joined us in this experiment, Phil is learning lots of magic from Karl who is our royal magician.  
"Oh Seymour! Came to check on us?"  
"Yeah, getting used to living in a virtual world yet Regina?"  
A tall girl called up to me and stopped working for a while. She had smooth brown hair that reaches up to her chest and a slender figure. She's taller than me by an inch or two but she's what you would call a beautiful person. Too bad I don't get swayed by anyone...  
"Yep! So far, the other members are pretty friendly! So it's really fun here specially in the virtual world so far." - Regina  
"You sure you're not lying cause we've been doing nothing but building and training yet."  
"Mhm! It's still preparation so I don't really mind." - Regina  
Alright, these two new members are pretty promising specially in their roles. So it's a good thing to have them take the back line and practice for a while more.  
I went around to check on the others as I waved towards Phil and Regina to carry on in their site. I ended up seeing a few members that are taking a break on a bench. There are three female members and two guys.  
"So Karl, when do you think this will finish up?" - Julius  
"Dunno, probably a while..." - Karl  
The three girls that are basically chatting around are Chesca, Sharon, and Valeria. These three are basically somewhere within the early members of my group. Chesca and one other female member which is not within the three are the two longest members.  
And speak of the devil here she is...  
Another tall and somewhat slender girl appeared with short, black, curly hair. Her height is somewhat taller against me by a few inches or so.  
"Christine? Finished your work already?"  
"Yep, I'm about to take a break but I guess I have to wait a bit more to hang around with the others." - Christine  
"I see, then I'll return to the keep for a little bit."  
"Alright!" - Christine  
I went towards the keep and prepared out on the dining hall for our lunch. I usually take the role to cook up unless I'm unavailable.  
Denzel was the first one that returned to the keep.  
"Seymour, do you have some pepper left?" - Denzel  
And that's what he's usually in here for...  
"Yeah, it's in the usual cabinet. Don't take all of it."  
"Thanks~!" - Denzel  
Denzel usually takes a few stored bottles filled with nothing but black pepper. The budget of our group isn't really in a state of emergency with him, Karl, and Allen and Julius managing all the money like real accountants.  
On the management of members side is something I'm keeping charge along with Robin. Michael's leadership skills are pretty much shit so we can't rely on him yet. Denzel tends to move around on his own despite having a class that works better in a group but he's great as a squad leader.  
Robin is a person I could rely on, even if he sucks at chess pretty much. Other people that could be great on strategic thinking would be Karl and Allen. They're the ones that could play a good role in the back line and strategize on the spot.  
I'm not always the one who has the perfect strategies. It can sometimes be pretty insane but it would still work. I'm open to their suggestions as long as it's useful or beneficial. I'm not keen into unnecessary sacrifices when I could just bring a war to a close in less than ten minutes.  
I continued to prepare the lunch for all members without preparing a share for Denzel. He's probably gonna go towards his friends which are somewhat acquainted to me. I took out some more ingredients and thought of more things that I could do while cooking.  
"Looks like I have quite a lot to do today..."  
When I looked at my current spot, I noticed that I actually had a lot to do today. Aside from managing all the stuff around I have to ensure that these guys will continue to grow. Guess I'll let Robin lead a part of them.  
I finished up the cooking and prepared the lunch at the dining hall. I lined up the tables and chairs and prepared a portion for each member excluding Denzel who asked for some pepper.  
"Now then, I should just wait for the others to show up."  
After preparing everything in the dining hall, I went back to the storage room and prepped out some orbs where I had stored various kinds of magic.  
I then went around the storage zone and took a single dagger, a few copper coins, and my tarot card...  
"Emperor... Suits me well..."  
I then simply just closed the chest and waited for the rest to arrive for lunch.  
"Seymour, everyone's here!" - Allen  
"Oh, perfect timing, I was just about to take a seat."  
Everybody took their seats in and started eating gleefully without much issue.  
"Seymour, where's Denzel?" - Michael  
"Ah, he's probably eating with his harem, dunno."  
Denzel tends to go around with his connections more than being with us. It's not unreasonable since he has to keep an eye on them pretty much. Besides, it's much more peaceful without his behavior that uses up like a bunch of widespread ice abilities.  
"After this, you guys might take a bit of rest before going out to collect some experience points. If we're behind levels and miss out on level points then we could be practically screwed. We can buy potions to boost our experience points at the spawn area but are pretty expensive, but it's worthwhile since it lasts for two hours and so."  
"I see, I guess we'll be moving in groups?" - Robin  
"I'm thinking of moving alone though? The others might need to form a group or so but it's not really a big issue."  
"Yeah, I'm also going alone for maximum efficiency. As far as I know, Denzel has racked up quite a bit of levels and kill count." - Michael  
The others seemed to have no issue so I'm gonna start thinking of what to do...  
"Michael, Robin, call Denzel later and we will have a three on one duel."  
"Huh?" - Robin  
"Say what?" - Michael  
It's been a while so I might as well take that training opportunity.


	9. The Early Game Arc: Powers at the Top

(Seymour's POV):

I went out alone to various cave entrances in the mountain and collected up a decent amount of experience points. I had enough to level up a few times I used some points to upgrade up my utility abilities and control. After I finished leveling up to 50, I finally reached a powerful passive ability.

"Territory control..."

This ability allows me to do anything within my territory. I can ensnare any target and make them unable to do anything until their death. I can generate a black cloud that will poison and suffocate players indiscriminately. And I can erupt stalagmites from the ground and joust targets.

There are more abilities that I could use aside from that but it just means I have absolute control in my territory. I won't be using for the upcoming spar later but, I'll experiment with this while the others haven't returned yet.

I went out to the open plains and simply thought of the move I wanted to make.

The first one that crossed my mind is erupting lava from the ground manually. Multiple spots within the ground have erupted a little bit of lava with a minor explosion towards the open space.

"Ok, this is way too overpowered..."

If I use this ability against them, they probably won't be able to hold out for too long. Maybe around an hour at best. So I won't be using this broken ability unless it's completely necessary.

When I noticed, it sucked up quite a bit of mana too so I shouldn't utilize it too much.

After a while of waiting, I noticed a lot of members watching over me. This normally means that everyone has returned and will be watching over the battle that will unfold in a few seconds.

I stayed in a meditation stance while waiting. So my range of focus is pretty wide.

Three ice spikes where flying in towards my spot silently. That would be Denzel's move...

I cancelled my concentration and dashed to the side as soon as I could. I then protected myself with a small later of void magic to nullify any other surprise attacks.

The first that came in was immediately right after I opened my eyes. A large ball of light was shining brightly which means that it's Robin's blinding light. I then moved around to avoid a possible laser aimed towards my spot. The first one to come close was Michael with his scythe.

I blocked his scythe with a poleaxe and got it stuck nicely to avoid any pushes.

"Impressive opening... Who thought it up?"  
"We'll tell after all this..." - Michael

Michael let go of his scythe and launched multiple low kicks aimed towards my knee.

I dashed back and generated a magic shield behind me. I pulled back the poleaxe and switched to a more suitable weapon. A staff...

Denzel was the second one to show up. He was dashing towards me from the side with gauntlets equipped.

"I see now..."

Michael seems to be preparing to release some fire magic which could be dangerous if I try to dodge Denzel. So I might as well stay in the spot and block him completely.

I faced Denzel and swiped out one of his hands before striking his stomach with the staff.

"Gufuu-!" - Denzel

When I noticed, I completely forgot about Robin's searing light. A large searing light was shot down from the sky aimed towards my spot.

Michael seems to have completed his preparations so I'll dodge to the side since he aims to fire behind me.

I turned my back towards them to avoid any sneaky spells behind my back. The shield will protect me unless it's Robin dashing forward, which is very unlikely since he aimed a laser at me...

After distancing myself from them, I turned around and noticed Michael and Denzel at the very first second.

Denzel twists his body to give out momentum to his attacks. He then launches a powerful straight jab with his gauntlet. I dodged the attack and twisted my staff to parry Michael's scythe that's about to hit me.

"Beautiful..."

I muttered on instinct as I notice Robin dashing in from behind. I then struck Michael on the gut which made him writhe in pain.

"Guhaa!" - Michael

Denzel launched a high kick as a follow up and changed his weapons into a pair of swords mid attack...

I lowered myself to avoid the leg and twisted my body around to use the staff on parrying Robin's rune blade.

I then raised myself and dashed backwards as the three stood in front of me.

Michael, Robin, and Denzel... They're undoubtedly my three strongest members here. Just too bad they can't hold a candle to me...

"Impressive you three... But at this point, it's game over now..."

Denzel dashed in first while Robin followed up behind him. Michael took out his tarot card and is seemingly going to use it.

"Tarot Card XV! Death! Activate!" - Michael

Michael starts emitting and gushing out various types of fire element magic and became completely dangerous. He grows a pair of wings and a pair of horns that makes him look completely devilish.

Denzel swings one sword and follows up with a rotation of his body. I blocked the first and dodged the follow up. Robin then takes his turn by precisely slashing down at my position which I dodged by hairsbreadth by moving closer to Denzel which got him surprised.

I then used my left elbow to strike Denzel in the face in which knocked him down. After him, I struck Robin by chopping his solar plexus with my hand.

Both of them groveled down on the ground as I shift my focus to Michael and charged at him.

He flew up which is really a problematic ability to fight against early game. Michael then dropped various magic attacks down as an airstrike on me.

"Artillery huh? I wonder what you had planned there Michael..."

Michael flinched in reaction and increased the bombardment. I took minor scrapes here and there but it was a dodge fest nonetheless.

In our combat practice, it's a one against three in taking down the team. I can confirm winning if I take all three of them down but, if they managed to get me down... It's gonna be their win.

Well, they're seemingly having trouble with it so it's all good.

Michael's barrage seems to have started thinning out. Each element of his fire barrage has a special effect. It can range to growing plants and blasting dirt everywhere, to freezing a part of your body and receiving irreparable burns.

"Guess it's time huh... Area lock!"

I set a small area and target locked it. I will bring Michael to that spot and get all of his mana lost, passing him out in an instant. The marked area is invisible to him which makes it difficult for him to keep an eye for surprise attacks.

I threw him off some void magic that is pretty harmful to force him to dodge. He does cancel out some of my void attacks but it wasn't enough to just stay in one spot and dodge endlessly.

After the single split second of hovering over the marked area. I activated the target locked ability.

"Area Drain!"  
"Fuuhaaaa!" - Michael

I have instantly drained out Michael's mana pool and have recovered my mana back to full.

"Activate!" - Denzel and Robin

I heard the two activate their abilities. The issue was Denzel arrived instantly in my face after the activation of an ability.

"!!!"

I blocked the gauntlet Denzel used to nearly strike my face. He's instantly stronger and faster... Is this the power of the strength card?

What Denzel activated with his tarot card. The one he got during the tournament was XI - Strength... It boosts his physical prowess by a high multitude and made the hand I used to block him bleed and crack a bit.

"Damn, this guy really knows how to get pumped up."

The speed is also multiplied by a similar amount, along with his other stats. It makes him as tanky as me but still a lot weaker.

I struck up him with an uppercut in which wasn't as effective as before. That gave me enough proof that he could survive a full power strike from me.

"Frozen!" - Denzel

Oops! That's bad news!

I took out a coin and tossed it in front of Denzel before he finishes a dangerous spellcast which is hard to avoid normally.

"Coffin!" - Denzel

The coin which I flicked up in between me and Denzel's eyes was frozen instead of myself. The frozen coin then hit Denzel's head which got him distracted.

I was about to strike him with an enchanted fist but I noticed Robin dashing in close by.

I committed to striking Denzel into the gut which made him cough out blood and became pale.

"That's two down..."

I enchanted my fist with Void Drain which sucks out mana that I can absorb or discard at will. It sucked out a huge chunk of Denzel's mana which makes it easier for a person to pass out.

There is a mechanic where the lesser mana percentage you have, the higher chances of you passing out after every strike. I sucked out at least 15% of Denzel's mana which increased his chance of passing out to pain.

As a result, Denzel fell down to the ground and stopped moving for a while.

Robin is left which he made a few strikes.

When I noticed, there are stars falling down within my area.

"Hoo... I wonder about the effect of your card..."

From the looks of it, multiple glitched figures appeared around him... Each took a different form of a sword which gives various effects... Or not...

"Power Balancing! We'll be completely equal!" - Robin

Criminy... A troublesome effect... The only difference between us is experience anyway so...

Robin launches a few standard and tricky strikes. In which I had parried and deflected with my staff finely. I then finished up the fight by simply stepping on his foot as he moves forward and trips down...

For insurance, I struck the back of his neck with the staff by poking it, making him pass out.

They grew quite well to inflict damage on me now by quite a bit. So I think I'll let them commemorate it.


	10. The Early Game Arc: Crystal of a Cryomancer

(Denzel's POV):

Around a month has passed since we entered the virtual world of Survivor's Path... We recently had a three on one duel against Seymour that featured me, Michael, and Robin. The three of us are practically powerful members but we still couldn't beat him properly. There's just a difficult issue when it comes to fighting such a powerful guy like him...  
"Haaaaah...."  
"Guess you had a hard time there Denz..." - Bella  
We're currently in the snow biome surrounded by walls of crystal objects.  
I sat down on a chair with an exasperated face. The time was currently nighttime but I'm here in the snow biome with Bella's friends.  
May, Ashley and Lilith are within the area too with Bella. They're wearing winter clothing that could pretty much withstand the cold temperatures of the snow tundra. However, I have built crystallized walls by spending a huge chunk of my mana and turned it into permanent building blocks.  
I had talked to Bella's group about the spar with Seymour that still failed after planning it out with the two of them. Michael got knocked out first which crippled our composition pretty much instantly.  
Right now, I'm in a major project involving the creation of a very large palace in the snow biome that's completely owned by me.  
Bella, Ashley, and Lilith have support classes that could practically be proven very useful. However, they didn't intentionally get themselves stuck here which applies to everyone here... But they felt really troubled about getting stuck in Survivor's Path so I took them in.  
They are my old acquaintances that I didn't expect to meet in the game so I might as well take care of them. Besides, they used to look after me when I had some major issues in the past...  
I have built a large broad area using nothing but ice magic which I turned into permanent building materials. Within such a huge space, the entire main room has been completed. A large spiral staircase is visible through transparent crystals which showcases a beautiful design. I didn't design the entire thing alone...  
"That staircase really is well made huh?" - Bella  
Bella looks up to the large spiral staircase in awe despite being the one giving me such an idea. I had most of my efforts done here and the main head of the designs of the walls, the floors, and the ceilings are thought up by Bella.  
In all honesty, I'm just completely bored of what to do...  
I went around and examined all rooms within the current floor I just finished after performing a huge overwork spree. I am in need of a long slumber after trying a lot harder in preparing the creation of the palace.  
I entered the first room on the left which is a large kitchen hall. It contains a huge amount of cooking tools or ingredients that could allow me to maximize the skill in less than a month. The rarity of the ingredients are separated nicely along with a severe obsession of having all the things organized along with the equipment.  
"Geez, I feel like there's a competition happening here."  
It was a standard pressure I feel whenever I enter such a spacious kitchen with highly organized equipment.  
I walked around in a single lap before entering a door that connects to the next room which is the dining hall.  
As I opened the door, the first thing that got my attention is the spot where I'm sitting. Why does it look like a frozen throne...  
Multiple crystal chairs are lined up pretty nicely and has a standard gap to the table, allowing enough room to take a seat and eat properly.  
Multiple long crystal tables are spread out with nicely detailed designs and support that holds up the thing.  
I swear, this will catch an extreme price but I'm in no need of money...  
And again, the brains of detailing everything came from Bella herself.  
I exit the room silently and moved on to the next room nearby.  
A spacious hall with multiple beds prepared are spread out within the room. Four large crystal couches that aren't the slightest bit soft are laid out in the center of the room. A small, transparent crystalized table is placed in between all four couches and is emitting a nice light.  
The beds laid out are for the female camp that I pretty much know for years, I technically sleep in a different room but it depends since I'll be working on constructing this place long term...  
"The others will be coming back soon so I might as well..."  
I fixed up the beddings on each bed before the female camp comes to the room. I then left after glancing at the crystal chandelier hanging from the roof.  
I then moved to the next room which is a place where I initially rest up.  
Large sofas are placed in various spots in the room, turning it into a perfect resting place as of the moment. The moderately spacious area completing the feel of a dim blue light and neat mood for resting. Perfect for a quick nap.  
I laid my entire body in a couch and closed my eyes for a little bit.  
Ah, it feels so comfy... Was it because I didn't sleep enough for the past few days? I did have enough rest before clashing against Seymour though... Well, it's probably because I got beaten up hard...  
After keeping my eyes closed for a while, I ended up dozing off into the dreamland without even knowing. I then lost my consciousness and felt a nice feeling on my head during my sleep.  
After a few hours passed, I woke up right next to a girl's face that had a pleasant hair color of sunrise. In front of me was Lilith's sleeping face that's very close to me for some reason.  
Wh-?!!! Why did she sleep here?! I have zero information of what happened last night aside from a nice feeling on my head...  
I slowly tried to squirm away from Lilith but I can suddenly feel something soft touching my arm.  
Crap, she's clinging alright... What do I do now...  
Lilith is somewhat clingy but... It doesn't particularly matter much since I have to take care of everyone anyway. Lilith just is a special case that needs more attention sometimes.  
I tried to slowly push her back against the couch to detach her clinging body on my arm. After successfully removing her arms, I managed to break free without waking her up.  
"Success..."  
After covering her in a blanket to avoid the chances of her getting a cold, I then went out of the room without making any noise to start my day after a long sleep.  
I moved to an underground junction where I had two extra rooms. One is for creating or upgrading weapons and tools and the other is for enchanting the weapons made.  
I moved to the workshop first as to prepare my countermeasures on a spear type weapon this time.  
I took out my Omnitelum and placed it on the workstation. I then brought out one of the schematics I stored it in my inventory. It had a drawing of a spear, I then took out some materials and a white orb for certain effects.  
I started to create the spear and made the design similar to the Omnitelum, I used up some platinum ingots and some crystals and a single piece of diamond. I placed them over the furnace and waited for the ingots to melt slowly before taking them out for the main part of the work.  
Quickly creating weapons isn't particularly great when it comes to fighting a war or so but... Seymour has given me a warning that there will be an upcoming boss monster that will invade each group of players. So we had the idea of grouping up in the castle tonight.  
The platinum ingots have melted down which now allowed me to start up the process of creating the spear.  
After a long early morning, I had finished creating the spear and practicing with it on the other underground junction which is the dojo. I then afterwards embedded the design so I can transform Omnitelum into a two meter spear.  
"Alright... Let's try this..."  
I equipped both gauntlets then clapped and joined them together.  
"Transweapon tech! Jouster!"  
I then followed a stance during the weapon's transformation. I then made a few moves as a test of balance.  
"Alright, it's doing well... I should go to everyone now..."  
I have moved to the dining hall where some food has been prepared.  
"Oh, it's already lunch?"  
"Denzel? I wonder where you went earlier? You just disappeared for a while..." - May  
"Ah, my bad May. Where are the others?"  
The only person in the dining room was May. I had a thought where the three are probably resting somewhere or having a nice warm shower.  
"Ah, they're preparing for the temporary transfer towards Seymour's castle. We will be invaded by boss tier monsters later after all..." - May  
"I see, how about you?"  
"I just finished mine, there wasn't really much things to pack around except for potions." - May  
I started eating lunch with May who is seemingly enjoying the dish prepared for her. When I took in what's on my plate, I instantly had an exquisite feeling of a nice French dish...  
This is probably Bella's cooking... She utilizes her skills in French cuisine after all...  
I enjoyed the dish to the fullest and somehow stopped on my habits of eating at a very fast paced.  
After lunch, I sat down at the center of the main room and waited for everyone else to gather there. I initially had no reason to head to Seymour's castle for this but we might as well stay there for the time being...  
As all four of them arrived, we went out of the palace and rode a magic carpet all the way to Seymour's castle.


	11. The Early Game Arc: The Eye of Cthulhu

(Denzel’s POV):

“Perfect timing Denz, we’re just about to call you.” - Seymour

I entered the meeting room in the castle that had all other members in various chairs. Only my seat was vacant on the long table.

“What’s the plan?”

I immediately went to my seat and listened in to Seymour who initiates the meeting.

“Alright, now that everyone is here. Let’s discuss our strategy to fight against the upcoming attack.” - Seymour

Seymour has given out various things in discussion for countermeasures of an incoming boss mob. According to the lore, there was a monster that will appear to eliminate everything in this world that it watches over. From the details, Seymour said that it was a giant eyeball that has some bloody parts reaching out at the back.

“So, we’re fighting a giant eyeball that watches over the entire world? It’s seriously similar to the game at home you know?” - Michael  
“Right, it’s seriously that 2d game where we had fun some time ago...”  
“I know right? The lore of everything in this world is true so if we go about it that way, this monster is invincible in its second form and has high speed regeneration of the flesh.” - Seymour  
“You’re kidding?! Then what are we supposed to do?” - Robin

A boss who is invincible at the 2nd form straight off the bat huh? I wonder if we’ll be fine...

The discussion turned into a simple chatter about how our lives went on. I went to Seymour’s circle that included Julius and Karl this time.

“Alright, you guys remember right? Denzel will be stopping at the top of the central tower... Below you is a layer of walls around the castle keep, use it to your advantage if you need to move around.” - Seymour  
“How many do you think we’ll be fighting?”  
“We’re guaranteed at least one per party... So since Julius and Karl will be partying up with the rest by a few groups or so. Us four will be fighting alone.” - Seymour  
“Another test eh?” - Michael  
“Right, I have expected this...” - Robin  
“Well, might as well...”  
“And I forbid you three from using tarot cards...” - Seymour  
“Why?!?!”

I would’ve been fine if I used tarot cards but... This seems unlikely... Well I don’t plan on dying anyway...

I checked on my inventory silently to see whether I have useful things that could buff me for a while. I may have to rely on magic abilities that could grand me movement speed or send off a barrage of attacks.

“Alright you three, no more pondering of your strategies... You lot would be keeping all the loot you’ll get along with an extra gift I’ll hand over after the boss fight.” - Seymour

All of us dispersed from the meeting room and moved in towards our positions.

Seymour went towards the open area on the north of the castle.

Michael took the east side where it’s sloped up a bit...

Robin takes on the south area which is going more uphill.

And the two parties are taking on the west side which is technically the widest part.

I partied up with Bella’s group but I’m fighting alone at the top of the central tower...

This’ll be a great experience for a while...

Night comes and I suddenly gain the feeling of something watching me. I tried to check all around me for presences but I found nothing.

“A spacious tower, lower walls that are technically my only movement route... Towers in each corner that can screw over my setup... In all honesty, this is a horrible arena... No wonder Seymour put me here...”

The moon starts giving light on the dim visibility of darkness. I didn’t pay attention to the light the moon gave but to my surroundings as it became too quiet.

After some time I heard Seymour from coms...

“Here they come... We got a total of five!” - Seymour

I looked up since the moonlight was immediately covered by five giant eyeballs levitating down towards me. Four of them diverged and started targeting the others down.

“I got nervous there for a second...”

The giant eyeball starts spewing out numerous smaller eyeballs that are trying to attack me.

I spread out my mana and created a small hailstorm within my area only. It helped me clear off the extra eyes that are flying around the arena. While doing so, I summoned a few ice spikes and aimed them towards the giant eye that seems to be charging something.

“Transweapon tech! Vajra!”

I changed my Omnitelum into two halves of a coffin sized shield and used it to cover me from above out of instinct.

While doing so I shot up the five ice spikes which made some blood drip down to the tower.

I then start to feel extreme charging to my body which is because of the implementation of an effect on Omnitelum when using the Vajra form.

When I noticed, my mana has been recharged back to full before I felt the heavy pressure hitting my shield. At that point I found out it was a converged energy.

After the convergence of energy ended up being deflected to the atmosphere, I then changed it back to a pair of gauntlets.

“Jeez, that was dangerous if I didn’t use Vajra there...”

When I noticed, the giant eye starts coming in closer at a high speed. Oh boy, it’s gonna ram at me now...

I jumped off the tower and landed to one of the inner walls... I checked to see if the giant eye destroyed it. With a sigh of relief, the eyeball just phased through the tower no problem...

“Oh, I honestly thought it’ll destroy the tower this instant...”

I dashed towards one of the corner towers of the inner walls.

The giant eye continues to bleed. Now, it’s moving towards me while summoning eyeballs and charging a particle beam...

“I have to deflect this...”

I angled my Vajra to deflect the laser directly into the sky. I shouldn’t risk destroying Seymour’s base.

Once more a huge number of mini eyeballs start charging towards me. Since I need to keep the angle upwards I had to use some magic...

“Frozen bullet!”

I summoned hundreds of ice fragments, and launched them everywhere to defend myself.

The cycle repeats, the giant eye starts charging once more and I started jumping tower by tower once more...

Since this cycle might bore me down, I summoned a wall of ice and pushed it using wind magic...

I then summoned more frozen bullets and fired each and every single one them...

The wall instantly shatters as it hits the gigantic eye... The frozen bullets hit followed up from behind which caused the monster to bleed more...

I summoned four ice spikes and stuck them to the floor... I touched the spike in front of me and channeled lightning magic.

Basically, an overpowered charged cannon... except that it has a huge opening for players...

“Am I done here?”

The giant eye stops moving... but after a short time it starts spinning in a fast manner. After stopping, a large part of the eye drops and now it shows a giant mouth with large and sharp teeth.

It starts dashing towards me once more, but with a fleeting speed this time...

“Huh? A second form?”

I had to dash faster this time...

I prowled my way to the next tower and summoned a giant ice wall once again...

I fired more frozen bullets than before...

Some entered the mouth and damaged the giant monster...

But the rest was completely deflected to all directions...

“You’ve got to be kidding!”

The eyeba- er... monster starts dashing faster... is it going berserk?

I prowled my way to another tower and repeated the process...

The monster slows down. I guess he has to recover a bit of energy before going berserk... Anyways, this is a chance...

I summoned a giant ice javelin and hurled it towards the monster’s mouth...

But the monster closed its mouth...

“No way...”

I ended up getting shocked and impressed for the realistic changes of how they made this boss a lot scarier than it looks.

Then let’s get serious...

“Darkened State!”

With the very low mana I have I won’t make it...

But, I don’t think that this is the last of my powers...

“Bleeding Crown!”

Even with the book of death, I do not have enough mana for the darkened state... So I’m supplying my mana with health which is currently half-full...

But I also have a final bonus...

I took out a small bottle filled with the grandiose pills I stole from some cave... It is a small bottle but it contains an endless amount of pills that will buff me up double for the first five minutes but has a severe aftereffect that will half all of my stats for the same amount of time.

“So this guy’s speed and dash has almost no opening...

But...”

The monster dashed 'berserkingly' once more...

I ran towards it and slid down as he was about to hit me.

“Got you!”

I tightly held on one of the tentacles from behind the eye...

The speed is annoying... I start to feel some jet lag...

But I ran to one side and stabbed a large ice spike in it...

While resisting the speed I moved to another spot and repeated the process...

After placing all four ice spikes I lost my balance.

I fell off and have to plan once more...

The boss monster started going berserk without stopping.

I desperately dodged and tripped...

“No choice huh.”

I clad myself with lightning and fired some lightning directly in front of me, 62° off the ground...

It hit one of the crystals. It ignited the rest and completely paralyzed the giant monster...

The monster only stopped moving at the point where it was half a meter off of eating me alive...

“Phew, Ice spike! Tenrai!”

I used the Japanese translation of the lightning clad which allows me to cast faster...

The Ice spike struck the insides of the monster and the lightning after connecting to the ice spikes, shattered the whole monster into many pieces.

“Haaaah... I’m finally done...”

I lied down and deactivated everything...


	12. The Early Game Arc: Shining Light

(Robin's POV):

After the invasion of the Eye of Cthulhu hitting upon us... We returned to our simple daily lives. There were some minor issues like small raids coming here and there but we never had something major occurring after finishing the entire castle.

It few days have passed after the Eye of Cthulhu invaded our castle. We had initiated another meeting towards our game progress.

The contents of the meeting was about finding a way to continue progress into the game while leisurely finding a way to keep watch over all the enemies.

The way to do that is spreading out very nicely towards each biome. We had planned to create bases everywhere and have pretty much decided quickly.

The ones who are still undecided are Michael, Ross, Julius, and Mitch... Some others are sticking together while some are staying by Seymour's castle. All of them are called in whenever there is something occurring.

Denzel has decided and actually began building in the snow biome. He was a cunning guy at some things, specially if it involves monopoly of location... By the looks of things he has a grand-scale structure planned in there. He was using ice magic a lot more than an average cryomancer. It's a severe training to further push his limits as he continues building at extreme paces.

"Karl, you're gonna be staying in the ocean huh?"  
"Yep, it has a decent stockpile of mana and is definitely a comfortable place to both stay and possibly collect information." - Karl

I'm currently talking to Karl who I followed to the enchanting tower for some improvements to my current selection of weapons.

"Besides, there's an entire town in the middle of the ocean that could give me a major advantage. Using the ocean directly to create possible attacks towards the enemy gives me a nice chance to keep myself distant." - Karl  
"I see, you'll be back with more friends huh?"  
"Well, who knows... I might stay alone because I'm not really sociable or whatnot..." - Karl  
"Well, I think you are pretty intelligent and subjective. You'll definitely find a few good friends there."  
"Ahaha~ We shouldn't forget our main objective though. Ah, it's done! Here..." - Karl

Karl handed me a broadsword with runes embedded into the blade. It's a large two-handed sword that could be difficult to use without training. The sword has a pristine white color that somewhat similar to a beacon of light that shines nicely in the dark. It lights up the entire room as I fill it up with mana, changing the gloomy atmosphere within the enchanting tower to become a stable and bright place.

"Damn that's bright... The effects alone are partly broken already. What if I use this on combat?"  
"Well, you can blind targets temporarily. Lightcasters should be immune to the blind effect and... You could sear someone with that light." - Karl  
"Holy crap... Aight, I forgot whether I should give you a nice payment or so."  
"Nah forget it, I leveled up like five times during the enchanting session so it's no biggie!" - Karl  
"Really? Then I'll provide you with information about more possibility of magic."

Karl is what we would initially call a genius. After finding out that the virtual world we're in allows us to study various kinds of magic. He took a short lesson from Seymour and started to create various kinds of magic formulas that could be a major way to improve in our lives in here.

I then bid him a short farewell and gratefulness before I left the tower after testing out the magic sword inside. I immediately went to the keep and met Seymour right at the entrance.

"Oh? Robin, do you have a good place in mind now?" - Seymour

I had selected a nice place where I could scout out for enemies whenever I want and stay safe every night guaranteed.

"I'm gonna take my game to the skies."  
"A sky-base? Interesting... I was expecting you to get a nice place to live on but that seems like you had something up higher in mind. So? Where's the biome this skyland is located?" - Seymour  
"I think it's above the swampy biome. It's not that much of an issue since I got an item that prevents fall damage as a whole. It's not just that but I have extra gravitation potions that I will use for aerial combat."

I don't really have much issues on combat in mid air except for air resistance and asphyxiation on higher altitudes.

"I think you'll need this more than me here..." - Seymour

Seymour starts taking out some item from an item bag that he owns. It's something that I would've never expected him to give me.

A bubble item that contained a pair of wings.

"You'll be able to fly infinitely with this. The speed starts slow but it's better since you can just train it until you have perfect mastery. Some wings have set speeds but aren't really useful since they have a cooldown after a set duration in flying." - Seymour

I just gained myself a free ticket to flying forever here. I'm not sure how I should react to it.

"Thanks, I'll definitely make use of this very well!"  
"You're welcome, notify me if your base is finished up." - Seymour

I left the castle and spread out the pair of wings. It's like an angel's wings but eh, if I can fly with it forever then I might as well enjoy it.

Just getting a pair of wings alone could give me major advantage in attacking. I could just fly up permanently and avoid any attackers.

I then started flying which is somewhat a little faster than normal running speed. I immediately flew towards the swamp while gradually training to fly faster.

After about an hour and a half, I had finally arrived to the skyland where I had explored one time before.

This skyland was disguised as it appears as a cloud from below. Under this, is a wide area swamp that I know well that it's a good place to be observed from enemy movement.

I turned towards the house and saw that it's pretty much completely built already.

"Well, I don't really have that much of a choice except to expand this."

The current state of the house is that it's a single story building with blue and yellow color scheme. At least it ain't made up of wood, it'll be troublesome if some fire breathing dragon spawns somewhere and burns it down.

I went inside the house and saw the decent designing already. It gives me a feeling of a house being built for me and having decent lights and other necessities in a home excluding food and other things.

"Just need to buy food and voila! I can live here for the next week now!"

I unpacked my items first thing and hid them in various rooms to act as storage. The current place is large enough for a single person like me to lodge in.

I entered one of the rooms that contained a bed and a few drawers. It contained a smaller room which is probably a shower. I wonder why those are implemented... Eh, it's probably there to allow us to keep our hygiene in check.

I took out my weapons and hanged them on a wall. I currently have four of which and are somewhat powerful weapons. Two of which are custom made and the other half was taken from various places, one came from this very house.

From the left I organized them pretty well. It starts from the Starfury I had collected some time ago, this actually makes stars fall towards a target that is hit by this weapon.. Then the other collected weapon was a simple Enchanted Sword. It fires an enchanted sword towards the angle you slashed. After that, my first runic sword I used which has the ability to negate all magic effects. Then lastly, the Light Piercer... It was recently completed by Karl's enchantments from the tower. I gave it a temporary name for now because it might be a pain in the ass if I ponder about it too much.

After packing all the things for the bedroom, I went to another room which has a table and a few chairs. It contains the essentials of a kitchen, the equipment are laid out but not particularly organized. I unpacked and organized another item bag that contains various cooking equipment.

After an hour or two of tending up the house, I simply just sat down and filled myself with pride of completely organizing a house all alone.

"Jeez, that was a difficult one. It feels pretty fulfilling doing it alone so I managed to really make it work out this time."

While talking to myself, I felt some presences inbound to this location. A single presence that is probably trying to explore only.

I simply sighed in exasperation and took out both the Enchanted Sword and the Starfury in respective hands. Dual wielding isn't really my forte, but if it's only one person then I might as well just scare him off.

I went to the entrance of the house and saw one person that is somewhat inexperienced with using gravitation potions.

He was squirming around and has major issues with controlling himself. He ended up faceplanting on the cloud at the edge of the grass.

"Uhh, you okay there?"

When I got a good look of the person, it looks like a kid trying to enjoy with some of his friends. When he heard me, he removed his face and saw me holding both swords down.

"Ah! I'm sorry! I didn't know someone had been here before us..." - ???  
"I see, do you have a group with you?"  
"Yes, they're waiting for me down there..." - ???  
"How many are you down there?"  
"About four or so, we're complete newbies please don't kill me!" - ???

Ah well, poor sap... I'll let him go this time.

"What's your name?"  
"My name's Jay, nice to meet you..." - Jay

He immediately offered his hand to me.

"The name's Robin... Likewise."

He seemed to want to ask me something so I invited him in to the house a bit for some tea.


	13. The Early Game Arc: Youngster Circumstance

It was Gayle who was shyly clasping her hands together... It seems to be a request, let's hear it...

"What do you need?"  
"Ahh! Umm, you promised, before the war..." - Gayle

Promise? With Gayle? Ah wait, it's about finding her boyfriend huh?

While ponding about which promise, Gayle continued her words...

"Lester... I want to find him..." - Gayle  
"Ah, I remember now, do you have any hints about where he is?"

Gayle pondered for some time and shrugged her shoulders afterwards...

"None..." - Gayle  
"I see, can you contact him?"

Gayle starts thinking and shakes her head this time...

"I don't know..." - Gayle

So she hasn't use the long distance comms huh...

I guess I should teach her then...

"Alright, let me teach you how to use them..."  
"Huh?" - Gayle

Gayle was confused to what I said and tilted her head... I left the bed and noticed that my current clothes are filled with decade-old memes...

Gayle chuckled as she saw the old rage comic meme faces in my clothing... Heh, stylish right?

"Anyways, let me teach you on how to message people on your friend list... Do you mind opening it?"  
"Mm." - Gayle

Gayle nodded and opened her friend list, it seems a bit on a large scale... How many is this? I moved closer and checked some names that aren't really relevant in my case...

"Press the username of your boyfriend..."

Gayle scrolls upwards and clicks the topmost name... He's first in the list huh? We're they in a relationship before we got sucked into the game?

I guess their relationship is gonna be very solid then...

"Now click the fourth tab over here..."

I pointed to the yellow tab after a new panel opened when Gayle pressed the username, her hand them moved to the yellow tab and tapped it similarly...

Another panel opened and two text boxes with a keyboard below the 2nd one...

"Alright, the top one here is the subject and the bottom box is the contents. It's like sending an email, so just write what you need to know before sending it towards him..."  
"Thanks!" - Gayle

Gayle smiled in both joy and relief for being able to contact her boyfriend now. Pretty sure the name was Lester? I don't know what class he uses but I sure do hope that I can use him in the future...

While ponding about utilizing people as good pieces for planning, Gayle suddenly tugged my sleeve and pleaded for something...

"I have... Another favor..." - Gayle

As far as I know, I don't know about the combat prowess of Gayle and the other girls. They could be a great force in some aspects... Gayle then took out a softball sized purple ore that seems to be oozing out some particles... Could it be?!

"I want you to make me a weapon, a large scythe perhaps..." - Gayle  
"Heh, I haven't heard about your class though?"

Gayle handed the purple ore to my palm and it had a bit of weight in it... Oh man, I was thinking of testing Chromium today but this mystical ore is very rare in the mystic biome in the southwest... Yes, there are biomes that didn't exist from Terraria which was unexpected. However, giving me a wonderful opportunity like this, I'm gonna make a very powerful weapon...

"Do you have more of these?"

I inadvertently asked that question to check if there are more mystic ore that she has so I can upgrade my gauntlets further... But she shook her head lightly as if signifying that she doesn't have more of it... Well that's too bad...

"Alright, give me two hours... You can find me in the forge..."

Gayle nodded and left the sky floor. She went to the two new houses that were built nicely at the foot of the palace, it had a good pavement on the ground to signify as a path. The design looks like a genuine house in the snowy areas...

I feel like the more I become acquainted to people, the more this place is gonna become a village...

While pondering so, I took out a sign to place in the front door of my room, changed to casual clothing and jumped down the spiral staircase and grabbed on the ledge of the staircase after falling two floors down...

I pulled myself up instantly and opened the door to the public storage room...

With the hundreds of chests that I see in the room, moved to the section that contains the pieces of steel materials and gems that I have collected in multiple mining sessions...

I took out a piece of platinum, tungsten, gold, and silver to compare each one to the purple mystical ore... Since this ore has high purity, the amount of magic it can hold is great... Which eliminates both Platinum and Tungsten... With Gold and Silver remaining, I pondered for some time since both ores have high purity of magic power... But thinking that gold and purple will go well, I have chosen gold...

I returned the other three ingots to their respective chests and took out an additional piece of gold... I then opened the chests that are filled with lots of gems... I doubt anyone would steal so yeah... Each chest had a different gem that it made choosing one was kind of difficult... However, my eyes were immediately pulled by the frost crystals I collected some time before the grand invasion...

"This should be fine enough..."

I took out three frost crystals that are as large as a golf ball...

I then closed all chests except for one...

The moment I saw the contents of the chest, an influx of ideas came to my mind...

"You know what? Why not?"

I took out a piece of obsidian on the size of a softball and smiled...

"Gathering these without Michael's help are nearly impossible... So I sure do hope it's gonna go well..."

I closed the chest and moved to the forgery while humming...

I descended the stairs until and moved to another staircase room which leads to the forgery.

I opened the room and with the frost forge and poured in mana to a piece of crystal that acts like a switch...

Multiple crystals start to glow in the room, clearing off the darkness in the room...

Now then, how should I make this mystic scythe...

Judging that Gayle wants a weapon, she may be a Mystical Assassin. So I have settled with a weapon that can be used well in both magic and physical combat... A scythe...

First is the handle...

I concentrated some magic in the small handle to the left of the forge. This to apply magic to activate the blue fire to smelt the mystical ore...

I applied more and more mana to slowly amplify the strength of the blue fire. Now is to heat up the ore...

Why am I doing this manually when I could simply convert the ore the normal way?

Custom made materials are definitely superior than the listed weapons that can be crafted without precise handiwork or so...

I set the heat of the blue fire to slowly heat up the entire ore to make it easier to change its shape... I then clamped the ore to a crystal handle and placed it at least half a meter over the blue fire... While waiting, I took the two pieces of gold ingots and placed them just above the blue first while being supported by two parallel needles... 

I then stood up from my spot and moved to the chest on the side of the room. Seeing the black hammer I used for forging, I felt a sense of familiarity...

"It's been a while..."

I took out the hammer and closed the chest that stores it... I then returned to my spot and took both pieces of gold...

I turned to the table to my right and placed down the two pieces of gold, I started flattening both pieces until their height reaches about one centimeter. Then I cut both gold to make the scythe reach 1.5 meters in length...

Now to shape it in a cylindrical manner... I use magic when doing that since it's troublesome to get a perfect circle manually... Now to shape the end of the scythe with some detailing... I shaped it like a blooming flower... I then embedded frost crystal to form petals with a gem at the center...

To test, I poured in some mana into the gem and it works finely...

Now since I have no knowledge about Mystic magic I have the perfect person to contact...

I opened my friend list and pressed Karl's username... I then pressed the second tab to try and contact him with a communication channel...

"Ey Karl, you busy?"


	14. The Early Game Arc: Demon's Mission

(Michael's POV):

Some time after two months of living in this world I grew bored of living in here already. I kept wandering around the castle and kept a schedule of training, farming levels and items. I didn't particularly hear from any of the other members in regards to possible explorations. But apparently, Seymour had enough of me doing nothing.  
"Michael, it's about time for you to sate your boredom of this virtual world and explore... Thus, I have a place that I would like to recommend you in exploring." - Seymour  
We're currently in the map room with Allen who is explaining the locations.  
"Over here in the far west side is a biome that is similar to the corruption biome Seymour has explained to me. It is a biome that contains red substances having material that is rumored to be crimtane." - Allen  
"Crimtane? Damn, isn't that basically crimson equipment?"  
"Yes, one of your favorite materials right? You should get yourself stacked in there so you can make actual progress with your growth." - Seymour  
"Right, but anyways... Michael, if you investigate well within the crimson biome, there will be various mounds of crimstone piled up in various places. If you carefully check each one you may be able to find an entrance to the underground extension of the biome." - Allen  
"What's in it though?"  
"What you're going to do is find one that has a thick bubble layer right at the entrance. It contains a powerful zodiac item that will be essential to surviving in this world." - Seymour  
"Zodiac you say? Didn't you get one some time ago?"  
"Yeah, I have about three of it now. I got Ophiuchus, Taurus, and Gemini so far. If I get all thirteen then we're definitely set for good." - Seymour  
"I see... What kind of effects do they have?"  
"My bad but, that currently remains a secret until further notice." - Seymour  
I didn't particularly have any idea what to think about Seymour keeping secret about some of his abilities. He didn't use his tarot cards in combat and is hiding even more things in his arsenal which will keep him completely shrouded in mystery in terms of combat. That issue will make people completely aware of his possible moves that will guarantee a shock due to lack of information.  
"Anyways, this biome is swarmed by dangerous monsters Michael. According to information brokers in this game, the monsters there seem to be around middle class. It's not just that but there will be a major issue in there." - Allen  
Major issue you say? Like a boss monster?  
"I know what you're thinking Michael. Yes, there's a boss monster lurking somewhere within the biome. It was said that one lurks in each of the chasms so it's not really a strong monster to fight alone so..." - Seymour  
Oh no no no, I know what you have in mind there!  
"No usage of tarot cards again." - Seymour  
"Damnit, well it's most likely weaker than the boss monster we faced last month so eh."  
"Yeah, so if you're ready you can exit this place anytime." - Seymour  
Seymour points towards the main entrance and shrugs his shoulders off.  
Well, a fun deadly quest just for me~  
"Thanks for the explanation Allen, it'll really help me."  
"No worries, I always get everyone covered in information control after all!" - Allen  
Allen waves his hand off as I face Seymour with determination.  
"I'll be back then."  
"Good for you, I'm also gonna explore later towards the corruption biome to do the same thing." - Seymour  
I actually know well why Seymour would spread out the members of Asylum. He intends to collect all thirteen of the zodiac artifacts and will become strengthened greatly. However, giving him absolute power over everything isn't really gonna change his personality much. He'll still be the emperor that will train all his subjects to become proper people and live a life that will ensure that people aren't scum in his castle. Cause if we did become arrogant and fill ourselves with pride, we'll be punished very hard.  
"Well, it's not really that big of an issue if I fight without my tarot card. I still have the holy potion I found some time ago after all."  
Some time ago, I found a shrine with a chest in it. It contained various common loot along with a single large gem that is at the size of a basketball. It gushes out liquid in which I curiously tried to drink.  
It completely invigorated me back to normal. The effect of this gem in which I called a holy potion was really useful in a sense. The effects of the potion are listed by myself after experiments.  
It instantly heals all injuries excluding decapitation, hunger, and permanent effects like miasma or so. Not only that but it clears up all status ailments and debuffs like broken armor, bleeding, poison, and decay.  
And for the effects to kick in within ten seconds is just the epitome of overpowered gear. There is literally no way to die unless I run out of potions during a fight.  
I went out of the castle and went straight to the north. I activated some spells I have learnt by clearing dungeons and gave me nice improvements on utility. One such spell is very useful in travel.  
"Fire Wings!"  
A pair of wings spread out completely. The pair of wings was made with nothing but fire, making it work very well if I had the demon card active.  
I can fly a set speed using these wings but I will run out of mana if I keep it up continuously.  
I flew sky-high and went straight to the north, toward Denzel's unfinished palace because I have some weapons to claim.  
After an hour of travel, I met Denzel and his friends which are chatting around.  
Boy, last time I went here it's only one large room with some places to go to... But that spiral staircase sure is something!  
I went towards one of the underground junctions and noticed Denzel's presence almost immediately. A thick presence was felt while I take a descent towards the stairs. It soon disappeared which probably meant that my arrival was probably perfect timing.  
When I had arrived to the junction, I saw Denzel sitting down while looking very exhausted. He leans his head backwards and sees me after leaning back his head too much.  
"Haaaah..." - Denzel  
Denzel returned to his normal slouching position while sighing out. Oi! You looked like you became more exhausted with seeing me!  
Denzel stood up and left the forge after performing a set of actions on halting on his work.  
"Yo, fancy place so far."  
When I looked around the inside of his palace, it looks very fancy. Careful detailing of the walls, the roof and the floor and proper materials used in decoration. The underground junction wasn't made with crystals, he made use of the extra marble in the Asylum's storage and turned it into a beautiful underground facility.  
"Yeah, the entire structure will be done in about, six more months after all." - Denzel  
"Jeez, are you sure that you'll stay alive during that?"  
"Who do you think I am? I can managed long term sessions unlike you, Gas Guzzler." - Denzel  
"Hush! Don't call me that here!"  
"Anyways, you're here to test the weapons?" - Denzel  
Denzel turns his head towards the other room which contained a scythe and a trident. Both weapons look very nice considering that the color of the scythe looks pretty demonic and the trident looking nice.  
"Hell, yeah."  
"The names are up to you." - Denzel  
We went to the room and held one weapon each. We transferred to the other underground junction to test these weapons. While passing by the spiral staircase, an orange haired girl called out to him. I think that's Lilith? One of Denzel's very close friends?  
"Ah Denzel, testing the weapons with... Michael?" - Lilith  
Well, seems like I'm forgotten already...  
"Yeah, don't tell anyone to come to the dojo for now. It could be dangerous for you guys." - Denzel  
"Alright~!" - Lilith  
After that, we had entered the underground junction that leads to the dojo.  
"Aight, I'll use it first as an example." - Denzel  
Denzel takes the scythe and splatters some blood in it. The blade extends by a little bit and is seemingly attracting the blood that splattered on the floor.  
"Damn, that seems neat!"  
"Well yeah, the blade will extend by a little bit for each ounce of blood it absorbs. The exact measurement would be an extension of one inch per ounce of blood. I made sure that this weapon will be able to conduct fire so you could use your abilities in it." - Denzel  
"Holy smokes where did you get the idea?"  
"Well, myself of course. I just had to bring this idea to Karl to turn it into a formula for enchantment." - Denzel  
Denzel knows how to enchant things. Combining it with his ability to creating overpowered weapons and armor is pretty much absurd in a sense.  
"What about this trident?"  
"This one's pretty simple, the penetration ability is the real deal but the nice twist is that..." - Denzel  
Denzel pointed the other end of the trident which has a hole inside it. He then channeled some mana and the opening spewed up a small frostfire ball.  
"Say what?"  
"If you channel some mana in it, you can cast a fireball of any element you desire." - Denzel  
"Is it really just a fireball?  
"I think you can pour more mana to make it spit fire in close range instead but I'm not sure about it. Oh wait! Before I forget!" - Denzel  
Denzel took the scythe once again and came close to me to point out something.  
"You can use the toggle to either extend your reach or to recover health. Don't tell anyone that it has a full hundred percent lifesteal ratio. It's deadly broken if you managed to stack up some range before going for full lifesteal. Don't worry about the weight of this weapon, it becomes lighter the more blood it absorbs." - Denzel  
Looking at the scythe, it started shrinking back to its original size.  
"And that will happen if you stay out of combat for a while." - Denzel  
I thanked Denzel by passing him a scroll that contained ice magic abilities and left the palace.  
With this, I'm completely set for the crimson!


	15. Crimson Blood

(Michael's POV):

I had spent a long time traveling around the crimson biome and have encountered various monsters. The number of flying types I had to face isn't a funny joke and gave me a hard time navigating. More monsters spawn in groups and attack while calling in reinforcements for some reason.

After two hours of navigation I had seen multiple large mounds of crimstone with no bubble like in the entrance. I was on the verge of giving up since I have explored the east side of the crimson biome completely. After some time, I had arrived to the center of the biome which has a huge mound. It out-scaled all the mounds I have seen so far.

I walked around the giant mound and found a large entrance that seems to be coated with a thick layer of bubble. Jackpot~

I went through the bubble and felt very uncomfortable passing through it. After going through the entire bubble I felt partly heavy and have feelings of something important being blocked.

I checked my stats immediately and noticed that the manapool is completely blocked. Bro, good thing I took the two weapons beforehand.

As I enter deeper into the chasm, I start to feel the presence of monsters spreading within the area below me.

"Damn, what am I supposed to do against these..."

What I've encountered so far are groups of face monsters and crimeras... Both monsters came from the familiar game of Terraria. Oh yeah, speaking of which this game just took in Minecraft, Terraria, and a few other games... Was it properly bought by a richer company? Or was it plagiarized? We currently have no information on that.

After entering a certain depth, I start to encounter the familiar face monster along with a new type. The look of the new type terrifies me overall, a freaking large spider...

These monsters don't really have a useful drop except vertebrae which is actually a material that can be used for a certain object.

It's not really known as of the moment though but it was said that it was pretty useful.

I prepared my scythe and swung it to eliminate the monsters in my path, I rushed downwards to keep the scythe as stacked up as possible. The good thing about magic weapons is that they don't really get disabled if the activation was passive or toggle. The trident is an active item and requires us to pour some mana to attack using the back.

I sliced through most monsters effortlessly due to how sharp Denzel made this weapon. It will give me a powerful clear speed on dashing down towards the chasm.

After about two minutes of rushing down all the monsters, a wide, dark room was in front of me. Without magic, my lighting would be horrible so I brought some torches and glowsticks. The types I brought were the ultra-bright ones.

I threw a torch down but ended up landing in water after a thirty feet drop.

That's unfortunate...

I threw a bunch of glowsticks at once this time and properly spread it around to make the area visible. I partially regret my decision of a spread-out styled throw...

When I looked out to the ground, it was a wide and deep area filled with nothing but multiple chasms, pools of water, crimeras and face monsters... And freaking spiders...

"Jeez, Denzel would've freaked out if he saw this many spiders..."

Fun fact, Denzel has severe arachnophobia... Mine was only pretty mild.

I jumped down now that I can see the ground and the possible spots I might fall down on.

I landed gracefully on the ground without taking fall damage. I then start to swing my scythe around like a maniac and cleared off all the monsters within the room in the matter of ten minutes.

After clearing all the monsters, I took out more glowsticks and stuck them on walls or so. Keeping light and vision will prevent monsters from spawning in certain dark spots. Having a lit up arena is important when fighting against boss monsters. That was a lesson I learned when I was fighting the Eye of Cthulhu.

I moved around the entire wide area to get used on my footing against the boss. I may require myself to dodge consistently or move around the area pretty quickly. So I started doing some running around for a short while. The glowsticks that I set up will not despawn until I go too far off the area. After some practice, I entered a chasm but was filled with water. Great, what do I do now?

I reached the end of the chasm and took out a dynamite stick. Now let's see about this...

I moved back and allowed the dynamite to detonate. After that I suddenly felt chills going down my spine.

I threw down another glowstick as one got destroyed from the explosion. I saw an item drop down which looks somewhat like a revolver and a bunch of musket balls.

I went down and took the item drops and swam back up the chasm. I was moments away from drowning but managed to barely scrape off from dying.

"The Undertaker? Guns aren't really my thing so I'll give this to Denzel because he might use it as a schematic to create a pair of guns for his arsenal."

The thought of passing these weapons to Denzel was a standard idea to help him generate a perfect all-rounder arsenal of weapons.

I went down another chasm which has literally nothing this time but a single heart that's visible already.

"So that's what I broke huh? Could be nice if I get the zodiac artifact from that..."

In all honestly, I would like to spare myself from encountering the boss... I've had my fair share of trouble with bosses already.

I took out another dynamite and threw it after ignition. I distanced myself before the explosion and started echoing screams all around me...

"This is a little creepy, I gotta say that..."

I moved to another chasm and repeated the process. After returning back to the wide room, the first thing I saw was a gigantic brain that's surrounded with small eyeballs that look like large cells around it. The gigantic brain has tentacles flinging around at the bottom, just to the side of the brain stem.

The brain moves around slowly but is closing in. The cells surrounding it started flocking over me mercilessly. I started cutting down each and every single cell I can find while keeping my distance as much as I could. I continuously ran back, turn around and clear as much cells as I could. When I noticed, the brain had disappeared completely and teleported right on top of me.

"!!!!"

The cells that dispersed during the disappearance started to move back towards the brain and surround it like a shield. When I looked closer, new cells started to spawn from the brain. Oh that ain't fair!

I dashed out before I get swarmed by the cells once again. After keeping distance, I turned around and saw that the cells start to act as a forcefield around the brain. This, is not like the game I used to play... This is like a real fantasy world...

While being in awe, the cells started to converge their way towards me once more. I had laid out an idea to just simply throw my trident through all of the cells. I instantly jousted through half and penetrated the brain. It simply got stuck and spewed out multiple cells at once as a result.

As I am running out of options, I decided to take care of the small fry that started to disperse first. The brain disappeared and the trident fell down to the ground. Without magic, I cannot use any of my tricks but just continuously slice off these cells that are spreading around.

The cells start to converge towards the brain that appeared a few meters above me. I dashed out towards the more cells and sliced of all that passed through me. When I checked, I can only see around ten remaining. I dashed forward and sliced down the remaining cells that converged to me. After slicing all of it, the brain that was facing towards me, blew off the front and revealed a heart beating inside it. Disgusting, there's even an eye there.

The issue is that, it's moving way faster this time.

Hitting the brain tissue didn't affect it one bit. As after the shedding of the front, twenty cells spawned around it. I made my situation worse by striking the tissue instead of the heart.

"Khah!"

I got rammed by the gigantic brain just like how a large truck would ram into me. I then get slapped by a tentacle from below and took more damage before the brain teleported away.

After coughing out blood, I looked around to become attentive to where the brain shows up. I then noticed that the brain teleported away from the trident. Using the chance, I dashed towards my other weapon and formed a dual wield stance. As the brain got close, it teleported again. I sliced off the extra cells and healed myself back up quite a bit. After the brain revealed itself again. I directly threw the trident and struck the heart. It got knocked back really well but teleported away instantly, dropping the trident.

I moved to the corner to prevent any surprises but it did not help at all.

"Holy fuck..."

Sixteen brains appeared at the same time... All of them didn't move from their spot but started to extend their flinging tentacles to destroy me.

"!!!"

I started dodging around desperately as each tentacle did damage the ground. I panicked so much I ended up stepping on mid-air.

"Shit!"

I used the scythe and stabbed it on the ground to raise myself up. I then noticed one brain gushing out blood from the heart.

"There you are~"

I dashed towards the brain that was in the opposite corner. It was high up so I had to run up the bulky wall and launched myself outward.

I raised my scythe very high and prepared to stab through the blade on the heart that's gushing out blood.

After a front-flip, I destroyed the heart and removed it from the brain, effectively killing it.

I then land down on the ground gracefully while holding out the scythe in a cool pose of a scythe user.

I sat down and rest up for a while before taking both the loot and the zodiac item Seymour requested...


	16. The Early Game Arc: The Emperor's Insane Prowess

(Seymour's POV):

I have completed my preparations toward my short solo expedition towards the biome filled with purple apparitions... A corrupted forest...

I simply took three weapons that are enough for me. All three are handmade by Denzel himself, a halberd, a spear, and a staff.

These weapons have lightness and power combined nicely, giving out a decent balance in handling.

I left my room and went around the castle for a single lap first.

"Oh Seymour! Going out somewhere?" - Chesca

The person that called out to me was a girl that was wearing light clothing and is seemingly on a break today. She had short purple hair and a style that can make a person mistake her as a guy. That person is Chesca, she mainly acts like a guy at times but she's a powerful sniper with pinpoint accuracy and positioning. We have her and Mitch take the role of scout and sniping in combat.

"Yeah, I'm going alone so Allen will take charge of the castle."  
"Ah, alright... Do you..." - Chesca

Have more bullets? Go ask Denzel...

Every time Chesca comes to ask me for something it would either be farming spots, or when she runs out of bullets.

"Do you have some snacks cause I'm a bit hungry right now and it's way off before the scheduled dinner..." - Chesca  
"Uh, huh... You know that you can use the kitchen however you want right?"

I allow people to freely utilize the kitchen in case they get a little hungry. There are some snacks prepared for anyone to just snatch around.

"Really? Is it alright?" - Chesca  
"Yeah, you can go ahead and take as much as you want. Be careful of choosing which ones though you might end up taking Denzel's tests. He's trying to make cola as far as I know."  
"Alright!" - Chesca

Chesca starts walking towards the kitchen while humming. Ah, I should remind her.

"Chesca, contact Denzel if you run out of bullets. His handiwork will work much better than the ammo you're using."

Classes have a starter gift which isn't really the greatest thing in the world for some of us. For classes that require a weapon, you're just given a decent starting weapon and you can wing it for a long time. Within the four of us, me, Michael, Robin, and Denzel, we're given an arsenal of magic instead. We can fight in the backline but preference is everything here.

After going through the kitchen, Chelsea seems to be drinking Denzel's experiment bottle and is feeling blissful with the drink.

"Guess she got the right one huh?"

Denzel tends to be disorganized with his placement of experimental objects. It reached to the point where it's completely annoying if we end up trying the wrong bottle out of confusion.

There were times where the people who drank the experiments became nauseous for half an hour. Drunk or tipsy, and even became a bit sleepy for a long time. We had punished Denzel for playing around with the other members but, it seems like Chesca's bliss will confirm that it's safe to steal drinks from Denzel now.

I passed through the map room and noticed Allen and Julius playing chess. I didn't disturb them and went off outside the castle where I met Mitch.

"Yo! Practicing today?"  
"Nope, I'm heading out to farm a huge amount of experience today." - Mitch  
"I see, where are the others?"  
"I don't really know since I'm moving around alone." - Mitch  
"Alright, if you come back here before me just know that Allen is currently in charge."  
"You're going out somewhere?" - Mitch  
"Yeah, I plan to collect another item from a large item series."  
"Zodiacs huh? That seems very difficult." - Mitch

I have already explained to them my intention of collecting the Zodiac series. They have yet to know what the effects of each one but each one will boost a single status significantly. For example, the Ophiuchus will boost my resilience to damage tenfold. Just having such an item greatly improves my stats. I have read a book that contains all thirteen zodiacs and their effects.

Having all thirteen zodiacs will increase all stats which are: Strength, vitality, resilience, agility, dexterity, tenacity, endurance, sustain, physical and magic negation.

The other three gives various effects like immunity to all debuffs, extreme increase in mana capacity, and balances all stats equally. It generally means that every single stat within me, will have an equal maximum. Any further scaling will distribute the stats all around.

Collecting the thirteenth zodiac will grant me a bonus effect. By a short movement of my body, I will gain the ability to stop time. It's not proven yet due to the number of theories about the active ability that requires all thirteen zodiacs. There was a list that contained all the possible abilities in collecting the artifacts.

The list goes on and on and contained very deadly abilities like a long time stop, future sight, invincibility, dimensional rift killing, and even mind control. The thing about using the abilities is that every person who has managed to collect the thirteen zodiacs often die by overuse of the abilities.

After a long way of travel towards the east, I had arrived to the corrupted biome. I momentarily explored the areas within the corruption because I was told that the huge chasm at the center would probably be the place where the zodiac is hidden.

The number of flying monsters were pretty extreme, I simply just used one ability to keep everything in check.

I made tall spikes emerge from the ground and aim it towards the monsters that are seemingly corrupted by something. What is this wasteland... Is there any chance of collecting any lore or information about this place.

The color of the biome is completely purple, the soil is goopy and the trees look pretty bad with purple leaves. The corruption is slowly spreading out at a pace of a meter per week. If my theory is correct, then the crimson should also be spreading towards somewhere... It'll be dangerous of it spreads to common ground.

"Purifying corrupted soil might be troublesome. I think we'll need to have an expert at nature magic but we don't have anyone excluding Karl. But there's also a chance that we would really require a Nature Nymph to purify the area. Not to mention we have to purify two areas."

The amount of possible chaos that would happen if this grass was to spread towards us is troublesome. It'll probably take a few years though.

I stopped worrying about the spread and walked around further. I keep launching various attacks by utilizing earth magic to raise up stalagmites and pierce through the flying monsters from the ground.

I didn't particularly have any issue on traversing the area if I can just insta-kill these monsters pretty easily. I manage to press forwards till I can see a town. Huh, why is there a town there?

I dashed towards the town and arrived there within a few minutes.

The town gate was closed and there was nobody that was responding.

"Anybody here?!"

A creepy silence flowed through the gate. The fact that the place simply echoed back to me was enough to tell that this is a ghost town now. It was proven true so I just took out one item that allows high mobility standards.

I threw a dark greenish pearl over the wall and waited for it to land. After landing, I instantly got teleported with an uncomfortable feeling of instant movement.

Jeez, I should close my eyes when using this for mobility but eh.

I started walking around the ghost town that had pretty much the standard stores that are essential to have economy. Stores are pretty empty and some have broken down quite well. I wonder if somebody built this a long time ago.

After looking around, I went to the central fountain to take a break.

"Wow, there's literally nothing here. I wonder if I could take a huge amount of free loot in this town..."

After thinking for a while, I decided to end my break as I saw a large library behind me. I tend to go to the libraries first because I need as much collectible information about this biome. The more information, the better we can handle living in this world.

After arriving to the library, I checked every single book to ensure I don't bring home a duplicate of what I have read already.

I found interesting books that contained information about living their life in this biome and experimenting on the new grass. Some books involve exploring the dark chasms that was generated by shadow orbs that are said to be celestial objects.

After finding about a dozen books I suddenly noticed a scream filled with pain.

"Wide-Area Detection!"

I immediately scanned the whole town to search for the scream which occurred somewhere within the east wing of the town.

"Haaah, I should just get to it..."

I went towards the location I felt the presence and the first thing I saw was a bunch of particles flying up to the sky.

"Help us!" - ???  
"Uwaaaah! I don't wanna die!" - ???

They're surrounded and screwed...

The couple screamed out in terror as I try to push through the hordes of people that have purple stuff all over them.

"Right, let's clean this up..."

I raised my hand up high and activated a skill that isn't really meant to be used in dueling.

"Insidious Insanity!"

A large black orb formed and generated millions of spikes aimed towards the corrupted villagers.

The number of spikes reached about 150, each struck a corrupted villager until it died.

The couple was completely shocked to what I can do and starts fearing for their life even more.

"Are you gonna kill us?" - ???

The guy stood in front of the girl and tried to protect her with all his life.

"You can take whatever you want and do whatever you please with me! Just don't harm her!" - ???

I retracted all 150 spikes and let all the corrupted villagers disperse into particles.

"You look interesting... I shall invite you two to the Asylum..."

I simply reached out for a handshake in which the guy returned it nervously.

"The name's Seymour, leader of Asylum."  
"Ah, my name is William... This girl is Mea..." - William

Two youngsters huh... Well they look promising.


	17. The Early Game Arc: The Eater of Worlds

(Seymour’s POV):

The three of us had returned to one of the cafes near the central fountain and talked about William and Mea’s life.

“So, what are you two doing here?”  
"We were being chased by an enemy group so we hid here..." - William  
"I see, the ones that died aren't your friends?"  
"Yes, they were all enemies. They had attracted a lot of these corrupted NPCs and almost got us killed. Good thing you have arrived. What are you exactly?" - William

What am I? Well it's pretty obvious so I'll just tell him.

I took out my tarot card without showing him what card I have.

"I think you're familiar with this? Yeah, I'm the leader of the faction that lives in the mountain range. Asylum."  
"Asylum!?! Wait, you're Denzel's higher up?!" - William

Oh, do they know Denzel?

William starts feeling pressured unnecessarily and fidgets around like a kid.

From the way he looks he's about sixteen or seventeen at most. He has a short stature but seems to be hiding some neat abilities.

"This'll make it easier then. I shall welcome you to the Asylum, hold on."

I took out a pair of emblems which will allow them to enter the castle as new members.

"Head to the mountain range at the north of the central spawn. You'll find a large castle and you can enter the castle with this emblem."  
"I see..." - William  
"Well, I'm off to the center of this biome."  
"Huh? You won't come to the castle with us?" - Mea  
"Nah, I have something to investigate for a bit. I'll go ahead promising youngsters."

I immediately left the room after listening to their gratefulness. I waved back and went straight to the center of the biome.

I noticed a large chasm at the very center of the biome and jumped down without even caring.

I rolled on my landing and seemingly had a good spot to land.

I noticed three orbs that are set in three spots on the wall. That's quite different from what I remember but... I guess I can just say that I'm lucky...

"Question is, can I blow them all at once using one holy hand grenade?"

Holy hand grenades are about five times stronger than dynamites. After carefully placing the holy hand grenade on the shadow orb in the center.

I backed down quickly to avoid being in the explosion radius and stayed at the back wall.

The room is large but I haven't really gave it any light. The entire room is pretty dark and could pose threats from the inside. But I have countermeasures for that...

"Night Vision!"

My vision turns green and can detect heat signatures within my line of sight. At that moment, the holy hand grenade finally blew up and caused a minor tremor. The tremor stopped and I started using earth magic to clear off some flying monsters.

After that I started to feel earthquakes and a powerful presence inbound. After some time of waiting, a hole was formed and a monster came out from it.

A lengthy version of those flying mobs revealed themselves in a large straight line.

Like a giant worm that eats the whole world. This is definitely the Eater of Worlds...

I wonder what kind of bullshit did they rig this guy with.

The boss mob dug down and quickly escaped from sight.

It left a hole in its path which makes me conclude that this boss will be very destructive unlike the one in the game. What’s more is...

The boss mob returned from the top of the cave, creating another hole and tried to eat me from above.

I dashed backwards and used Earthbound which is the name of my ability that emerges stalagmites from below, to puncture this boss as a test.

The blood spurted everywhere, the first few parts of this boss mob were removed and blown into particles. What fell down to the ground is some drops of demon ore, some sort of powder, and a bunch of blood.

The blood instantly corroded the drops and made them despawn.

The worm creates an new head and went down after turning its trajectory to create another hole.

I could crush it while it’s digging but I want the loot this guy drops.

I tried to enclose my position towards the body that’s still trying to enter the hole but... Suddenly, the worm intentionally disconnected from the main body, becoming two halves of it.

I can still feel the presence of the other half that is still digging through deeper underground...

The other one chased me and vomited a large amount of blood

“It’s faster than before...”

I dodged to the side to avoid the acidic blood and stabbed my halberd into the front head.

"According to Denzel, these guys have lower armor on the front face. This actually proves the truth, when I have almost no strength fighting back against my halberd."

It easily took out five heads...

I managed to received the loot before they got despawned by the acidic blood.

But as it landed on the floor, it splattered and spread out so I was forced to dash backwards. I stopped my dash midway and dashed to the side, avoiding the one that's digging from below.

The part that splattered blood almost everywhere created another hole to start digging.

I took out a bottle filled with greenish purple liquid, and poured it on the blade of the halberd...

"Denz, I wonder what the effect of this potion is..."

I didn’t receive an explanation from Denzel, so I simply took one bottle filled with this color and fiddled with it for a while.

It said: “Pouring this on a weapon will generate an unknown effect.”

And so I got to test it here...

Both worms entered the rocks and are now moving towards me from opposite directions.

"I swear, if this game gave all mobs the ability to navigate around and become highly power predator hunters then we have to think about the talk on Creepers from Minecraft coming soon. I wonder if those are gonna be way more stupid."

But I had this in my priority list.

The worm in front of me came out first and tried to eat me in one go...

I thrust forward the halberd and trusted it.

I cut through eight heads of the worm and didn’t spill any blood at all.

*Effect Identified*

So Denzel made it to corrode only blood as much as possible huh? I know you can recover blood and organs by drinking blood potions but, this game is quite complicated...

The worm from behind finally showed up but I had something in mind.

"Stalactite rain..."

Multiple spikes formed from the roof of the cave and dropped down in all directions.

A few spikes pierced through the worm and punctured it with a severe infection via Earthen Bleeding...

I removed a total of twenty heads since I started the fight.

Pretty sure that this guy had around fifty heads or maybe seventy-five. It depends on the difficulty.

I stepped side wards and demolished multiple stalactites and manipulated them using wind magic. I threw them all towards the giant worm which destroyed another head.

The worm ignored me and created another hole. Another worm showed up and attacked from the side.

I lowered my stance and stabbed the worm from below.

I brought it down and locked its position, but a small part of the worm disconnected and continued moving.

"Troublesome..."

I removed the halberd and started moving around to clear off the remaining heads...

Two worms kept charging at me while vomiting out their acid.

Once they both entered a hole, I noticed something...

I looked directly at the tail and it suddenly extended by another head and converted it to become two heads.

"So it multiplies whenever it eats some blocks huh..."

Regenerating through obscure areas is a neat ability. It leaves the targets confused on their target.

So the more I divide them the faster they multiply huh...

I’ll basically remove them one by one then.

One worm showed up in my direction but I immediately thrust the halberd through it and removed around twelve heads before it changed direction to avoid losing more heads.

The other worm showed up from the side which I used Earthbound to stop it from its tracks. I cleared around another thirteen heads but it is unclear about the current number remaining.

"Maybe around fifty..."

It should have around that amount left considering how long both worms are still currently.

"Maybe a regeneration core?"

I concentrated my energy to locate the core of both worms. It seems that after generating a head the core will transfer, and if it doesn’t exist, it will generate a core. So the target is the tail.

One worm came out from my left back side to try and eat me alive once again. I dashed sideways and destroyed the tail which is for some reason, hardened...

"That was troublesome..."

The worm tried to hide but I took this chance to eliminate as many heads as I can from that worm.

But the other worm showed up from my left to try and distract me.

“Aren’t you smart?”

I activated Earthbound and eliminated the coreless worm while dashing forward.

I discarded another ten heads and found the tail.

I stomped the ground hard enough to make rock particles jump out and converted all of it around me to a large earth spike. I launched the spike towards the tail which destroyed it.

The worm hanged for a few seconds and fell down temporarily before making an escape.

But during that time I cut off another ten heads and it had around seven heads left before it escaped at a high speed.

I felt the worm returning to me with twelve heads so I just simply crushed the worm itself and eliminated it from the game.

"Finally... That was extremely exhausting."

After collecting the treasure bag that dropped to the ground. A demon altar emerged from the ground and is basking in the sunlight.

It then revealed a a zodiac sign inside a bubble.

The Zodiac sign that appeared was Cancer.

Nice...


End file.
